November 16, 2018: I doubt I will ever get over the deep grief I feel each November 16, the day my mother was relocated to #DementiaJail in 2012. All I can do is try to process it in whatever way I can. This year, once again, it’s with poetry.
the rendering
©2018 punkie
the rendering
nothing more
could be done
all fault lay with
the setting sun
whose will it was
to force imprison
the one from whom
we’d both arisen
a deal had been struck
the year before
when no one knew
what lay in store
then came time
to pay the piper
fate took aim
fired like a sniper
shot her, then me
but not to death
left us bleeding
drained of breath
we struggled hard
for four more years
held hands amidst
the joys and tears
until the day that
she surrendered
with untold truth
for me to render
now i fight on
to right the wrong
of stolen voices
and silent songs
©2017 Susan Macaulay. I invite you to share my poetry widely, but please do not reblog or copy and paste my poems into other social media without my permission. Thank you.
November 16, 2017:
November 16, 2016:
November 16, 2015:
November 16, 2012:
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My Alzheimer's Story 
Thank you for your story. It’s confirmed to me that I couldnt look after my Nana alone & keep her living in her own home..101 yrs..mostly able, apart from a troubling painful right knee & groin along with dementia.
The agony of her many cries, for me to help her, when, after a hip.operation she got ulcerated heals (which she believed were cut by hospital staff, but must have suddenly come up from blisters after her rubbing her heals on the coarse sheets)..and could no longer walk. How she’d beg me to take her home & she would not understand that I could not..how I’d have to hop on the bed with her & I’d sing her nursery rhymes & children Christian songs like :’Yes Jesus loves me. What torturous days. Her trying to tell me about strange people coming & poking at her I the night..then I realized after staying a night or two that nurses would come..gown up-head & all, then turn the light on & work over & around her, lifting her gown doing this & that without ever speaking to her. I said to them.. so you’re the strange people poking & prodding my Nana & I tried to help them see how patients can feel..alone, afraid & agitated..at least talk to them& tell them what ‘you’re do I g & who you are’.
Why didn’t I ask them to give her a 1mg Lorazepam 3xs a day..it would have taken the edge off..this would have been a perfect medication that could easily have been regulated..half in morng half lunch then whole evening..but at her age Id definately have agreed to her having that medication. I used it for anxiety &after a couple of months regulated its use so as not to get excited or needing stronger doses.
O my gosh the stuff I saw her go through In the hospital then the new home she was moved to..her terrible agitation..feelings of desperation & tormenting fear.
My poor Nana. And the other patients also, who suffered terribly without family to look out for them.
Thankfully I never witnessed bully nurses the home she was in..most tried & did their best & I was there daily at different hours from morning to late at night.
I’m so so sorry for what your mother went through & I did see many patients lying in catatonic states i their rooms day after day & witnessed over night changes in once full of gusto patients to suddenly not leaving their rooms & I’d never get to chat with again.
Thanks..it helps to talk it out.
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Thanks for sharing your story Yvonne. Sorry for the loss of your Nana ❤
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