What a great day!! This is splurge weekend. So pizza for supper last night, ate half of my portion and saved half for cold pizza from breakfast today - YEAH!! Great way to start the day - then church which is always excellent, love the messages, love the music, love the people - then picked up my mom from the nursing home, and some nurse I've never seen before was getting her all wound up as we were going out the door (remember, nursie-poo, she CAN'T live in your reality, and trying to make her, gets her UPSET!), but a few minutes with our dogs and cat, and my mom was in a better mood. Then Pete grilled us a FABULOUS supper, with some of our lovely produce from Horrock's - portabello caps, zucchini, and yellow squash brushed with olive oil and seasoned with garlic salt - eggplant slices serenaded in olive oil and balsamic - plus burgers...my mom was ECSTATIC over supper, couldn't stop saying how delicious it was (she's been a veggie lover her whole life anyway), and she really went crazy for the portabello caps especially. After that, a small chocolate cone at the Custard Cup and she was happier than I've seen her in months! Really made me feel great :). Add the lovely breeze sunny mild day, and that Pete doesn't have to work tonight, and it is about as perfect a summer day as I can even imagine!

My mom had a good day today.

I was going to bring her over for New Year's Day yesterday but was still feeling a tad punky from the stomach junk (virus? don't know) I'd had for a few days. So today I picked her up for lunch at Burger King. She likes to go there and people-watch, and watch the traffic go by. Plus it is next to a lot that used to have a business where she worked, back in the day. She doesn't remember why it seems familiar to her, but it does.

She got a bacon burger from the dollar menu, a small coffee, and an order of fries. She ate the burger but not the fries - those all went into the trash. ($1.79 into the trash - about killed me! But they're all carbs, so they're better off there than in my body!) I ate 2 bacon burgers without buns and a side salad.

After she ate, my mom was anxious to go. So we stopped at Sav-a-Lot for a few things, I got her a 12-pack of diet Bubba cola that she loves, and then came back here for a coffee. She downed her decaf and promptly fell asleep on the couch with Pharaoh (my minpin). I took her back to the nursing home when she woke up about 90 minutes later.

It was a good day, she was in a good mood, not too confused, and happy. The Lewy Body rollercoaster highs and lows - days with better memory and cognition - days with much confusion and no understanding - I'm just glad today she was doing well enough to enjoy herself.

I have mentioned previously that my mother has LBD. I am her guardian, and see to her personal, medical, and day to day needs. My sister downstate sees to her financial and business affairs. (She has the tougher end of the bargain - she says I do. Let's just say that we're each well-suited to our tasks.) My mom lives in a small, friendly nursing home with a family atmosphere 4 minutes from my house - 1/3 mile as the crow flies. So I can see her, or take her out, frequently. Unfortunately, as time goes on she is less and less comfortable away from her home. though...

But last week was my husband's Christmas party for his job. They held it at a restaurant about 10 miles west of town. So while he went and partied with his cronies, my mom and I also got a table and had our own lunch. Afterward we took a drive to a town about 25 miles further out, as I wanted to show my mom and Pete the wind farm out there that I had discovered earlier. While there we also stopped at an Amish store to get lots of bargains (and probably spent 20-25% of retail cost on few dozen items!).

My mom really enjoyed herself. It is the longest - and farthest - she'd been from her home in probably 2 years. She had never been to this area, but was telling us about who lived in each house, and her memories of living there, of seeing the massive electricity-generating windmills in her yard (she grew up in the 30's and 40's), of her childhood friends and walking to school with them and playing outside, and all sorts of "memories" that existed only in her own mind.  And she was thrilled.

It is common knowledge that those with dementia are incapable of entering our reality. What many people have a hard time with is entering theirs. The temptation is great to say, "Oh no, mom, you've never been to this part of the state before, and you grew up hundreds of miles from here!" but seriously, what would be the benefit of that? She was enjoying her memories, and she was out getting sunshine and fresh air, and she was excited and happy.

She lives in the moment. She doesn't remember yesterday, or even that same morning, or 5 minutes ago. She can't conceive of tomorrow, or any sort of future. Her life consists of the present. She will see something and within seconds she believes it to be a long-distant memory, as the concept of time has become so fuzzy...

My mom comes to my house on Sundays. We pick her up after church, and she stays for supper, and then becomes very anxious to get home. But while she's here she will look out the windows at the neighborhood and describe to me how it was part of her distant past. There is no "a week ago" or even "every Sunday for the last 4½ years" - just distance.

Anyway - it is all about moments, and giving her good ones. She won't remember these moments, good or bad, but in the present I want all of her moments to be filled with good  memories of things, whether they're real or not. And I want her to see the world through eyes of happy experiences - whether they are real, or exist only in her own reality.