The other thing about Mum is that she was a bit of a hypochondriac. Once I’d moved out of home, I would call her if I wasn’t feeling well, and no matter what ailment I had, Mum also had it—and that included one instance where I twisted my ankle doing tae-kwon-do; she too had a bit of a dodgy ankle that day. Having a hypochondriac in your life does weird things to your ability to sympathise when they might actually be sick. Mum was usually healthy, but on the days when she was off colour, or not quite herself, I tended to let it pass over me, assuming she was perhaps dramatising the situation. I probably wasn’t as proactive as I should have been, and I carry that baggage with me to this day. To be honest, I still have that lack of empathy for sickness. If my husband is down and out with the flu, my care strategy is to suggest he take a brisk walk around the block to shake it off. My own son at the age of two and a half broke his wrist in two places, and for three days I told him to ‘Toughen up, Tiger’ with a ruffle of the hair. (In my defence, we didn’t realise he’d actually broken his wrist, as he could move and twist his wrist with no pain—but obviously I didn’t go on to win Mother of the Year.)
So Mum was gifted with sympathetic illness, shall we say—but she also had another affliction worthy of an entry in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Mum could eat a meal and within five minutes, it would have passed through her system and made its way out of her colon. We would sit down for a family dinner and no more than two minutes after finishing, Mum would excuse herself, then arrive back at the table three minutes later claiming she’d ‘lost the lot’. That was just gross on many levels, but would also infuriate my brother no end. He would forever be arguing that she did not in fact have a pipe that ran directly from her mouth to her bum that would result in food passing through her system in under five minutes.
‘Well I do,’ Mum would state proudly.
I looked forward to going to restaurants, where Mum would finish a beautiful meal, visit the restroom, rejoin the table and announce: ‘Well, that was an absolute waste of money!’ Maybe that’s how she kept her slender figure all those years. She also had a freakish ability to overhear conversations. In restaurants we’d be continually ‘shooshed’ so she could get the exact details of all the financial problems the couple three tables away were experiencing. But her powers extended far further than that: she could even hear conversations that were taking place at least two suburbs away. Coming home from school I would be whispering an elaborate plan to my sister of how I was going to dodge my homework that night, and Mum would be standing at the front gate saying, ‘I heard that.’ She earnt the name ‘antenna ears’ from all three of her loving children.
Her body was indeed a marvel of science.
Once Dad retired he was home all the time and started doing everything for her. He didn’t like her driving at night, and then didn’t like her driving at all. He would do the shopping, often cook their dinner—and eventually started finishing sentences for her. I’d get frustrated by this, and chastise him about letting Mum do things for herself. I was so convinced her brain was slowly shutting down that I’d buy puzzles and games for her as stimulation, only to find them tucked away in the sewing cupboard, along with stacks of other unused brain busters, reams of fabric and unpainted china. As a child, Mum was quite the Liberace (in a less bejewelled, flamboyant way), so I set up a digital piano on the back patio, hoping that might help awaken her brain. I also hooked up a computer in the spare bedroom, thinking they could spend lovely afternoons on the ‘world wide web’ looking at gardening websites and checking in with family via email and poking their friends on Facebook. Granted, the computer was a big ask, as neither of my parents had ever used one, and when I tried to get Dad to type his name it immediately became evident that his fingers had never even graced a keyboard. As much as I wanted to gracefully bring my parents into the twenty-first century, there are some things that are not worth the effort. (Even today he struggles with his mobile phone, and I can’t remember how many times we made the trip to the house because the cable television ‘wasn’t working’.) Ironically, Mum had a better handle on technology than Dad before she went downhill—but fifteen minutes into our first computer session, I walked back in to find her sliding the mouse across the computer screen. Maybe she was ahead of her time and was ‘swiping’. Maybe not. The computer was turned off and never used again.
There is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s or dementia. But the big question that everybody continues to ask is: can we do anything to help lessen our chances of getting this disease?
The research is still very inconclusive. Many studies are showing that although you can’t repair damaged brain cells, learning something new can create new connections between brain cells, which can in turn increase ‘brain reserve’. And if brain cells are damaged by a disease such as Alzheimer’s, having a high reserve of healthy brain cells may help the brain to function using different cognitive pathways and strategies, or may help delay the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms.
There is some research to suggest that living a brain healthy life, particularly during mid-life, may reduce a person’s risk of developing dementia. Cognitively stimulating activities such as learning a new language or musical instrument, or just listening to radio or reading, can help protect against neural decline.
I had seen all the news stories that get wheeled out every few months claiming that keeping your brain active can help you avoid Alzheimer’s. I had seen the junk adverts on websites about brain-training programs that will help keep your mind healthy. Computerised brain training is a billion-dollar industry these days: I just typed ‘brain training’ into Google and got almost 30 million results. I then typed ‘brain training games’ and came up with 22 million results, and 14 million results for ‘brain training apps’.
I am guilty of buying into the brain training phenomena. When I first decided to get on board, I downloaded every version of every app I could find. I have spent so many hours lying in bed at night swiping arrows, tapping on coloured dots, trying to remember patterns and tapping ‘yes’ when I should have tapped ‘no’ that there’s a good chance I have lost healthy brain cells through stress and lack of sleep.
There is no evidence to prove that any of these cognitive games or apps are effective in the ways that most of us are shelling out the cash for. They all promise to improve our memory, attention and problem solving, but in reality, at best, they may only improve or extend our ability to perform particular tasks better.
One article I read sums it up beautifully. If the time and money you invest on brain games is time not spent exercising, or learning a language, or trying out a new recipe or playing with your children or grandchildren, then it may not be worth it. But, if you are playing brain games instead of sitting in a sedentary state watching mindless televisions shows, or playing gaming machines for money, then brain training might just be the better choice.
Still, I’m not seeing any quick fixes here.
3
’Twas the Night Before Alzheimer’s
The decline that occurs with Alzheimer’s can be so slow as to be barely perceptible; many people just accept that as you get older you start to lose your memory, and that’s what we assumed was happening to Mum—until the Christmas of 2005, when things started unravelling.
It was a week or so before Christmas Day, and something Mum said hit me like a ton of bricks. Something so out of character I felt my stomach drop, as if I’d just plummeted off the edge of a cliff.
Every year for as long as I could remember, Mum would bake Christmas cookies for friends and family. Intricate little creations that were so perfectly executed and so beautifully decorated it was almost a shame to eat them. I had told Mum that I’d come over and help her start the Christmas cookie process—spending the day in the kitchen with Mum was seeing her at her happiest; she was the ultimate baker, and the pantry was always jam-packed with her delicious cookies, slices and cakes. (Afternoon tea, by the way, was a ritual in our house. Dad was the tea aficionado: on
e spoon of tea leaves per person and one for the pot, add the boiling water and leave the pot to sit for ten minutes, then three turns to the left and three turns to the right. He used the same teapot for over twenty years and never once washed it out; instead he would empty the tea leaves in the backyard, under the apricot tree. You couldn’t have a cup of tea without something to nibble on, so out would come Mum’s Anzac bikkies or lemon cake or yo-yos. To this day I blame Mum for my sweet tooth—that and the Caramello Koala phone-booth-spotting game.)
So, the Christmas cookie session was underway. We had all the ingredients lined up—flour and sugar meticulously measured, trays lined, everything working like a well-oiled machine. As Mum began kneading her shortbread dough, she started getting frustrated that it wasn’t coming together as it should. I was startled by her potty-mouthed reaction to the disaster unfolding before our very eyes.
As a good-mannered, god-fearing mother of three, Mum was never much of a swearer. In fact she and her sister had a habit of spelling out words that were not fit for little human ears. A lunch session around the kitchen table with the two of them in full flight was like an episode of Wheel of Fortune—but without the annoying spinning wheel sound. ‘I said to them all, you’re giving me the S–H–I–T–S!’ or ‘She can be a real B–I–T–C–H’ or ‘He was a proper B–A–S, that one!’ The more colourful the swear word, the fewer letters they would use.
So back to the shortbread, which was a crumbled mess. When I suggested that perhaps we could try adding a little more water to soften up the dough, she looked around and said, ‘We don’t have any more water.’ Ummm, yes we do: we are in the kitchen, standing next to a sink equipped with two taps in perfect working order—of course we have water. We can just turn around, turn on the tap and voilà, we have water.
That was the moment I realised that the inevitable was actually happening. That one comment took me from ‘Mum is a bit forgetful in her old age’ to ‘Mum has lost her mind!’ I then began going over all those odd behaviours that had probably been obvious signs of Mum’s impending Alzheimer’s, but that I hadn’t wanted to recognise or acknowledge. The evidence was presenting itself every day: the horse had bolted.
Christmas was always Mum’s favourite time of year. She’d spend 364 days planning for it. The kind of planning that saw her hit the shops on Boxing Day to buy discounted wrapping paper and cards for the following year. She would put so much thought and effort into every gift, so all her children had exactly the same number of presents on Christmas morning. Walking into our lounge room after Santa had been was like walking into a room where a Toys R Us truck had been sick all over the floor. Even at an age when we actually knew better, we still bought into the Santa routine as it clearly made Mum happy. You couldn’t move for gifts—and we were by no means a rich family, it was just that every little thing was individually wrapped: each pair of undies, each item of doll’s clothing that she had hand sewn, every single piece of cheap costume jewellery (that would be broken by the time we sat down for Christmas dinner). And then there were the gifts that kept appearing every year as part of the Christmas ritual. My brother still to this day can’t face Christmas without one of those chocolate bar–filled Santa stockings (which are now half the size, ten times the price and packed in plastic rather than netting). Mine was a new purse, always with a coin in it, as it was bad luck to gift a purse without money inside.
After all the presents had been opened, the roast would go in the oven and the smell would permeate the house for the rest of the day. Mum would always fill two crystal dishes to the brim with mixed nuts and chocolate-coated almonds for our pre-dinner nibbles. The table would be set with the good cutlery and special Wedgwood dinner plates; cranberry sauce, apple sauce and gravy all had their own little jugs just for the occasion. The Christmas crackers on the side plates had to be pulled early into the meal, so we could sit around the table in our finest attire and accessorise our outfits by wearing brightly coloured cheap paper crowns on our heads. Christmas carols would croon from the stereo and the calico-wrapped plum pudding, filled with threepence, would be cut down from the bathroom shower rail, where it had been hanging for the past month. (We actually couldn’t shower for a month before Christmas because we didn’t want to get the plum pudding wet. Luckily we had a bathtub, otherwise it would have been a very whiffy December.)
Every Christmas Day planned to perfection—it is such a strong memory for me. No matter what was going on in the world or in our individual lives, Christmas dinner at Mum and Dad’s was always the same: perfect!
So that first Christmas when things weren’t as they’d always been was the real eye opener for us. The tree just didn’t look right; normally it would be adorned with family heirloom decorations that each had their own backstory, way too much tinsel and enough flashing lights to cause a seizure—but not this year. A box or two of unused decorations still sat in the spare room, untouched. There were hardly any presents under the tree, and it was horrifyingly obvious there’d be no overpriced, undersized, chocolate-filled plastic Santa stocking for my 50-year-old brother that year. The present-opening ceremony was over in the blink of an eye. I had scored a diary and a few cooking utensils; I looked down at my pile and selfishly felt a little underwhelmed. The only consolation was looking around at everyone else’s underwhelming piles. On the upside, it was the first year I didn’t have to open the gift of a homemade T-shirt and hold it up saying how beautiful it was.
Then I noticed there was no Christmas card for Dad under the tree. Mum and Dad were huge on writing cards for each other—they would forgo presents for the sake of a beautifully worded card. Mum kept every card she had ever received from Dad and us kids over the years. When I asked her discreetly where Dad’s card was, she looked at me blankly. I took her out into the kitchen to find the card, assuming she had actually bought one for him—thankfully it was sitting on the bench behind a bunch of unopened mail. As it turns out, Dad probably bought his own card for Mum to give to him. I told her to write on it while I went back into the lounge room to cover up the stealth last-minute card-writing operation occurring in the kitchen. When I went to check on her, she was standing at the bench looking out the window—the card was still blank. She looked at me, tears rolling down her cheeks. She knew something was wrong. She couldn’t articulate on the card what was in her head. She couldn’t write on her own husband’s Christmas card, and that was a truly horrible moment for her. I wanted to hug her, but part of me felt that if I acknowledged this was a thing, I couldn’t then deny it was happening. I wrote on it for her, and although Dad knew it wasn’t Mum’s writing (I tried to fudge it as best I could) he proudly read it aloud after it miraculously turned up under the plastic tree.
That was a bombshell for me, not only in terms of my Mum’s future, but for our future as a family—I knew we were all going to have to step up. Mum was no longer capable of being the present buyer, or the tree decorator, or the plum pudding maker, or the buyer of that obligatory chocolate stocking—it was now up to the rest of us to share the load that she had carried for the past 50 years.
I can’t say that Mum ever really knew she had Alzheimer’s—we didn’t sit her down after her diagnosis and give her the news, and I’m not sure she really processed what the doctor had said; we just let her continue her day-to-day life, doing what we could to keep up appearances. But that Christmas morning was the only time I could tell she was aware enough to know something wasn’t right. I never saw it in her again. There is no way Dad couldn’t have noticed her downward spiral, and in hindsight it was obvious that he too covered up as many of Mum’s slip-ups as he could.
There was one particular slip-up I wished he’d intercepted.
When I was living overseas, Mum was always so organised and thoughtful in sending gifts over for me to open on Christmas Day. My last Christmas in the States I spent with my then-boyfriend, now-husband, and was so excited to open the box that Mum had sent me, wrapped in Aussie-themed Christmas paper. I
was imagining all the possible gifts that might be hiding inside. Would there be a new pair of UGG boots maybe, and a few packets of Tim Tams and Twisties?
Nope. The box, mainly filled with screwed-up newspaper, contained a travel roulette game, and a skimpy pair of black lace G-string undies. I’m not sure who was more shocked, him or me. He must have felt he was about to marry a woman whose mother thought she was a pole-dancing gambler. That perhaps should have been a bit of a red flag—not for my husband, in his choice of a future wife, but for me, about Mum’s state of mind.
That ‘not quite right’ Christmas, together with Mum’s increasing vagueness and the decline in her conversation, prompted us to seek a professional opinion from an Alzheimer’s specialist. Mum, Dad and us three kids all sat in the clinic while they conducted a series of cognitive tests. One of them was a verbal questionnaire about general knowledge and current events: what’s your name, where do you live, what year is it, who is the prime minister? (Mum could’ve been forgiven for getting that last question wrong, given the rate Australia changes prime ministers!) She did pretty well on that test—probably a bit better than I would’ve, if I’m being completely honest. Then she took some logic tests, with questions like draw the hands on the clock to indicate midnight, or what do these animals have in common; with these she struggled. The other tests were of a medical nature.
I walked out of the specialist’s office quite uneasy. It was becoming all too real.
A week or two later, we were all back in that same office. When the doctor confirmed that Mum was indeed presenting with the initial symptoms of probable Alzheimer’s disease, I didn’t believe him.
Not Right In The Head Page 2
