Wednesday, May 8, 2013

90 and with dementia means NO MORE DRIVING!

December 2012, Mom is 90 years old. With all six of us, her daughters

Don and I are the bad guys.

Yesterday while my mother was at physical therapy, we took her car from her garage never to be returned again!
In fear and trembling until she would notice that it was gone, we waited for her outrage.

This morning we were there fixing her outside light and when the car came up she said, oh! I saw that it was gone but since I can't drive yet...
But, I said, you really shouldn't drive any more, you might have an accident and then what?
She said as expected, I have never had an accident, you don't have to go with me, I can do whatever I want...
We were surprised and confused that she didn't get mad and more demanding about where the car was.

But, it happended today; While I was having lunch at my sister's, she called and asked about the car.   My sister said that she was not in charge and she had to talk with me.  So, I could feel my blood pressure rising as I told Mom that we had already told her that we had taken the car to be fixed. She retorted that she is not crazy and that we had not told her anything of the kind and that as soon as the doctor said that she could drive, she would be out there driving because she has always been a safe driver!

Friday she returns to the doctor for a checkup of her 3 month old knee injury of her knee which has prevented her from driving since.  We hope for a letter from the doctor saying that her since her knee does not show signs of recovery, she should not drive any more - or something to that effect.  Hopefully the doctor will write a letter to say that she should not drive.

Her regular doctor just wrote a letter to that effect, referring to her dementia, but we don't want to show it to her since she denies that she has dementia.

We will be returning to Ga in a couple of days and then my sisters, who live here will have to continue to deal with her about this.  They are so good to be taking care of her! 

But we are the bad guys!!

Now I am going over to her house to play dominoes with her.

One week later:

She is giving all the sisters a hard time about her car being gone and that we took it without consulting her.  Of course if we had consulted her, she would not have let us take her car.  

       She hung up on me when I called her yesterday and told her the car was    not fixed yet.
         She went to her doctor who told her not to drive because her injury has not healed.  She still says that she can drive.

So what now?  We should just tell her the truth: that we took her car because we don't want her driving any more...  My sister that is her caregiver because she lives 2 blocks away says to continue as it is.  She is getting advice from her daughter who is a lawyer.

Want to share any advice?

Straight or Curly hair?

I have had curly hair all my life and ahve been straightening it for about a year now with a flat iron.  I like it but sometimes I think it makes me look old.

When the humidity gets high it is impossible to keep.  So when I saw this picture in my In Style magazine, I thought, I can try this!
Hayden Panettiere medium bob haircut.
I love Hayden's long hair in Nashville, so I wonder whe she took this photo.  Her hair is so natural!  Of course I have to work to get my hair like this, but I'm trying!
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Then I took a picture of Patricia Heaton when she was a guest on THE TALK.  I loved her hair and wanted to take it to my hairdresser to cut my hair like hers.  I had to take lots of pictures so that her face would not look all funny.  These are the best.




Next time I will add a picture of me with my hair like this to see what you think!

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Easter 2013

We celebrate new life!
Don's peach tree in our back yard
The sun shines through giving us hope.

The sun after a stormy day.