Visit With Mom

I went to tuck my mom into bed after arriving into town. She was in her closet futzing around when I came in with my dog. She didn't recognize the dog and kind of gave me a funny face (like she wasn't quite sure who I was). I went over and gave her a hug and said "Hi Mom." As I started to hug her, she said my name.

She said that it was very hot, and she wanted to change her shirt. Now, granted later I realized that she had her thermostat set to 88F. I tried to just get her to go out to the common areas, but she insisted, so I gave her a short sleeved shirt. At that point, she got confused like what was she supposed to do with this, so I said "okay, take off your shirt." Her bra was on inside out. So, I helped her fix this, which I could tell embarrassed her to be so naked. She also smelled pretty bad, especially under her arms.

Then we got out to the common area, and she said she was too cold. There were many little frustrations like this. It was kind of shocking too to see her hair looking so bad (just not taken care of), her face with a bad rash (they're supposed to be washing her face morning and night, which I doubt they're doing), and just looking altogether older than when I saw her last month.

She fell in love with my dog again, as if she had never met her (she's known her for the whole time I've had her), saying that she has never felt a dog this soft and saying with surprise"I think the dog is watching television." Yes, my dog has always been soft and watched tv, but I just nodded.

She had a hard time doing the activities that we did last month - the preschool maze book and reading from this really basic book for toddlers, she could read a couple words but other words she couldn't put the letters together in her head. If I pushed her (which I only bothered to do once or twice), she would say the first letter right but then something else just random maybe with some of the same sounds but not the right word.

I went in there thinking that I had to not mourn every loss of my mom, but I left realizing how hard that really is. I also might have found a dog for my dad - an 8 year old Shih Tzu that was abandoned, but I'm not sure if that's too old or if I should wait until we hear about the CT scan results before I even bring it up. He's so attached to my dog - who is completely ignoring me by the way and just eating up getting spoiled by my dad.