Dementia

For a while now everytime I call home to talk to my mom she tells me about my grandma's forgetfullness. I think it started some time last year. She would forget simple things like where she kept her handbag or house keys. Then she would forget things like how we had extended an invitation to her to come for a gathering at our place (she would feel hurt because she heard it from someone else and thought that she wasn't invited). And now it's becoming really bad. She's lost the ability to remember names, she can't remember eating or whether she cooked or not, she would think that someone else's handbag was hers or her handbag is someone else's and she won't remember the people she meets. She'll have a really great conversation with someone, know the person by name, but two hours after the meeting, she'll forget who they were and why she was talking to them so animatedly if she didn't recognize them. What's worse is that she knows her memory is failing her and she is very troubled about it. She keeps asking why she can't remember anything and the doctors keep telling her that it's just old age. If only there's a way to cure it. But I've read somewhat on the topic and it looks like the only that can be done is to slow the progression with medication.

I remember growing up and meeting old grand aunts who were having the same problems as my grandma. But back then I thought that it would never happen to someone in my family. Now that it's happening, I wonder who else in our family would grow to be like that too. What if my mom would be that way when she grows older? I'd feel horrible if I couldn't take care of her since I'm so far away from where she is. Maybe by then hubby and I would have moved back to our home country. But you never know, we're not planning for it that's for sure. The option is always kept open, but only as a last resort if things don't go well for us here. It may sound very selfish, but it's just the way it is for us. I don't need to list the reasons for our choices. Our family members understand why we do it. And that's enough.

Anyway, I do hope my grandma will live long enough to meet and be entertained by the children I hope to have in the future. No one's getting any younger and sometimes in the race to establish and make a name for yourself, you forget the other things in life that matter.