My Mother Has Alzheimer's Disease

In 2007, Mum's symptoms of dementia first became very noticeable in the form of unusual behaviour such as barricading doors, tying up gates with handkerchiefs, calling the police all the time to imagined intruders and obsessing over her two cats. But even years before that, she'd made bad judgments with money, selling her house to a conwoman for $100,000 less than it was worth and wasting money on employing tradesmen to carry out unnecessary work. She only became seriously forgetful in 2010.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Two days of 'nice', thanks to the Commonwealth Bank

I can't believe it. For the past 2 days, Mum has been 'nice'. I can't recall any 'nice' days in years. She's always belligerent, nasty, paranoid and generally horrible. But yesterday and today, she's done nothing wrong. She's done everything I asked her to. She hasn't minded my supervising the toilet and shower. She hasn't demanded that the cats be let in at night.

It's funny, but on Saturday night I had to ring the Commonwealth Bank to re-invest Mum's money. It was the only time I had the time to do it. The lady who answered the phone could hear Mum playing up in the background and said she'd say a prayer for her.

Well, maybe it's co-incidence, but it appears to have worked.