Mediations on Alzheimer’s
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Mediations on Alzheimer’s
My mom cut her leg recently, apparently trying to get out of bed at her memory care facility. They think she caught it on the bed rail. She barely noticed, even when the hospice nurse treated her for the wound. She didn’t flinch or react. That’s what the primary caregiver at her facility told me when I called. Mom just lied there. No expression. Not even an involuntary twitch. No recognition.
This comes with the territory. With her Alzheimer’s. The disease slowly shuts the brain down, sector by sector, robbing the patient of brain function — ultimately compromising not just thought but body function.
It’s difficult to know whether we are there yet. Mom had Covid, which could be contributing to her unresponsiveness. To her need to sleep nearly all the time. Or it could be her Alzheimer’s. We can’t know, because she can’t tell us, hasn’t been able to tell us for a while, doesn’t know herself.
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© 2022 Hank Kalet
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Author: hankkalet
Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.
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Hank Kalet 