Watch out for your Alzheimer’s family member (and yourself if you’re “senior”) if Obama’s Stimulus Bill sneaks through in its current form.
  

As ultimately planned, your doctor will have to get permission for your treatment, possibly by someone not medically trained but only looking at the bottom dollar or cost effectiveness:

•  Is the cost of treating this person (you or your Alzheimer’s family member) economically worthwhile, considering age, life expectency and contribution or drain upon society?
• Will this person be a productive, contributing member of society if treated? 
• Will the cost of treatment outweigh their future productiveness?
• Will the person be a burden…so we’ll let them die? 

Senarios:

• Would my mother have been allowed to suffer and die or, perish the thought, be “put out of her misery,” when she broke her hip during her Alzheimer’s years?  Because it was treated, she lived 8 more years…yes, in a nursing home and slowly progressing further into Alzheimer’s.  But still she was a joy to her family and, by living and simply being there, taught her great grandchildren about love and caring.
• Would I have been forced to go untreated when I broke my back and required a body cast?  Would we have had to prove my future contributions to society?
• Would my mother-in-law with breast cancer in her early 80s have been considered too old for the lumpectomy and radiation?  (She died 12 years later of congestive heart failure, at age 94, cancer free.  But no one could have predicted that longevity when she was treated.)

Non-complying doctors would be penalized if they treated a person the health care coordinator deemed unprofitable for society.  The individual who could afford to go outside the system for treatment would be penalized.  (”Penalized” could mean fines and even jail time.)

These national health care provisions could affect more than the elderly and infirm.  What about anyone who is terminally ill or deemed not worth the expense of getting them well? 

Related Posts:

“Big Brother” health care provisions

Fast Tracking Govt. Control of Health Care

Eliminate the Elderly

Motto of the Stimulus Bill 

(Scientifics Online image at Amazon)

Post from: Blisstree

Stimulus Health Care Provisions Could Eliminate the Elderly, the Infirm & Terminally Ill

However, as I look back, I find that sometimes during challenging times, I’ve found it difficult to write my thoughts immediately about the events.  My journal goes through a dry spell. This happened when my brother committed suicide, my mother died, and our daughter went through a grave illness.  Perhaps I’m too involved, my emotions too sensitive, my life too busy.

“I’m a writer,” I’d think.  “Why can’t I write about these things…at least jot notes in my journal?”

Then after the pattern repeated, I realized perhaps I needed to step away from writing for a period of time so I could eventually write about these situations to help others.  (I kept up with my professional writing commitments during these times, but not the extremely personal.)

Do you find you can write about crisis situations when you’re going through them?  Or do you need to step back and gather your emotions before you can put pen to paper?

Writing and sharing your experiences often helps others to cope and realize they’re not alone.  However, don’t feel badly if you can’t write immediately…or don’t even want to write/journal your experiences.  Even though I wrote later about my journey with Mother and Auntie as they experienced Alzheimer’s, I sometimes didn’t have the time nor inclination to do so at the time.

Are you journaling about your experiences…either in a notebook or in a blog, perhaps even a newspaper column?

(Basic Living image at Amazon)

Post from: Blisstree

Writing Your Alzheimer’s Thoughts

After I wrote the post, Sharing Quilting with Your Alzheimer’s Patient and Family, Betty told about her experiences with her mom and quilting.  She told how she includes her mom in her activities.

My Mom’s got dementia and she enjoys watching me select the colors for my quilts. She also likes to pick up the fallen scraps off the floor and carry them around. I let her keep them, unless they’re needed for a specific project. Last time I took her to a quiltshow, she wandered off and was lost for awhile. Now I go to the shows alone, but take lots of pictures for us to share together.

I related an incident with my mom.  She enjoyed quilts in her Alzheimer’s years although she couldn’t do any quilting. My daughter made Mother one to place over her lap in her wheel chair.  She seemed to enjoy touching it, running her fingers over the designs and following the seams.

In her better years, my mom encouraged me in my quilting and told stories about quilts of her childhood.   

Are there activities and crafts you include your Alzheimer’s parent in?

(Amazon image)

Post from: Blisstree

Sharing Quilting & Alzheimer’s Caregiving Experiences

Remembering 9/11 occurred across the country today. 

 At the school where I was substitute teaching, the students and faculty gathered at the flag pole in front of the building.  Police and firemen from the community, along with other citizens joined them for a short talk, pledge of allegiance, and to sing “This Land is Your Land.”

On 9/11/01, I also was substitute teaching, in first grade that day, when the principal stopped by my room and handed me a note, mentioning what was happening and that the television in the teacher’s room was on.  Until we knew more, we weren’t to alarm the students.

Since than we have comforted, found comfort, remembered, reminisced, and wondered “Why?”  Friends and relatives have gone abroad to defend our country and to keep terrorism at bay.

What do we say to our children, when they ask, like my grandson did tonight at the supper table, “What was 9/11?  Why did we have the ceremony at school today?”

Then we realize that he was too young to grasp the what was going on as we watched the television for more than a week, waited for names of people we knew and loved, wondered if there would be another attack soon.

It was a day that changed much in our country…and the world.  How did it affect your life?

(Amazon images; click for DVD details)

(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen

Post from: Blisstree

9/11 – A Day of Remembrance for Families Around the Globe

Boy, 2, Suffers From Rare Children’s Alzheimer’s Condition – “A 2-year-old boy in England suffers from a rare genetic disease sometimes referred to as Children’s Alzheimer’s disease…” (more)

Not your grandmother’s Alzheimer’s – “Carol Kirsch relished her demanding position as a sales trainer for Kaiser Permanente in Oakland. But a couple of years ago, a good friend told Kirsch she just wasn’t performing up to par. She was missing deadlines. And she’d forget meetings, so co-workers would have to come fetch her…” (more)

Post from: Blisstree

Alzheimer’s Personal Stories from Around the World.

“Which one of has Alzheimer’s?  Mother or me?”I’d sometimes wonder when I tried to figure our which of the “me’s” I was. 

At one time Mother thought I was two people…Mary Emma (me, moi) and “that other” woman who was trying to steal my husband!  Then there were occasions when I wondered which one I was.  Or was I someone else entirely watching the whole scenerio. 

The first time it happened, Mother said, ”That other woman was here while you were at Joanie’s (Mother’s neighbor).”

“Which woman?” I asked, thinking a friend had stopped by and Mother had forgotten her name.

“That other one Jim has here.”

WOW!  Now what was going on?

“She was sitting with Jim and Lorance (the man who helped us manage Mother’s properties).  And she was giving them money!” Mother explained.

Now it became clear.  Earlier I had been sitting at the dining table with the men, going over repair bills, making plans for property upkeep and paying Lorance for his work.  Was I that “other woman?”

Another time, it might be: “That other woman was here while you were gone,” Mother whispered conspiratorially.  “But I made her leave.  She isn’t here now, is she?”

“No, Mother, I’m here,” I replied

“Good. She can’t trick me,”  Mother continued.  “I’m too smart for her.”

For several months, I did seem to acquire two identities.  When I tried to convince Mother I was me, Mary Emma, she accused the “other woman” of trying to steal my name as well as my husband. 

“What’s her name?”  Mother once asked.

“Mary Ellen,” I said.  And that seemed to satisfy her.  So I had to remember which Mary I was when.

I learned to sort them out, learned to play each role, learned how to get that other woman to leave.   Eventually Mary Ellen left for good and Mother forgot she ever existed.  By that time, Mother often thought I was her older sister so I role played another identity.

Since I couldn’t convince Mother otherwise, I learned to be whomever she wanted for the day and opted for an adventure of multiple identities.

(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen

Post from: Blisstree

The Multiple Identities of An Alzheimer’s Caregiver

Remembering intimacy – “Hallie Pasko knew her mother’s new relationship had gotten serious when the 85-year-old woman told her she needed a bigger bed – so her boyfriend could sleep over…” (more)

Let’s get it started: Family to hit pavement for Alzheimer’s research – “Kate Hassan, a Waltham resident, has fond memories of the time she spent with and things she learned as a child from her grandmother…” (more)

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Alzheimer’s Disease: Personal Stories.

“When they said Jim had Alzheimer’s, I was in shock,” Jim’s wife, Michelle, quietly recalls. “I mean, I had heard of Alzheimer’s because of President Reagan. And I had worked at one time when I was younger to care for someone with Alzheimer’s (but) I thought that was for people when they got older. And I really didn’t believe it.”

Read their story here…

Post from: Blisstree

Personal Story: A Young Man with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Post from: Blisstree

Video: Artist Josh Dorman on Painting Alzheimer’s Disease.

I discovered the second in the series the other day. This article, Mourning meets multi-tasking, continues to focus on Lorraine and Marjorie Jackson (mother and daughter) as they deal with the impact of Alzheimer’s disease.

“…The first time Marjorie Jackson answered a collection agency call about her mom’s overdue credit card bill, she thought it was a mistake.

After calls about three other missed credit card payments, a late phone bill and a past-due home heating oil contract, Marjorie added bill paying to her growing to-do list for her mom…”

Read more…

Post from: Blisstree

Second Article on Alzheimer’s at Buck County Courier Times.