The microwave
[written when mom had been living with us for two years, May/22]:
“The BLACK. The Black it won’t. I can’t!” My Mom is besides herself as she stares at “the black”. She walks over to me, “Someone did this!” She has lost many words since she was diagnosed with dementia and sometimes I just have to find it amusing to keep us all going. I tell myself it’s like playing a game of Password or some other word game where I have become her best teammate and translator.
“It’s okay mom the microwave is broken, but we’ll get a new one soon.” “SOMEONE did it!,” she repeats, “I just can’t! Oh, oh just Forget about it”.
She storms out of the kitchen and somehow seems to blame me for her confusion.
Passive aggressiveness, unfortunately, is one thing she HAS NOT forgotten how to do since the symptoms started.
Every day for the last few years since my mother moved in with us - at the beginning of CoVid quarantine and never left - my emotions go haywire. Mom was over dramatic before she was diagnosed, but always in a good or humorous way, “it’s freezing outside! Put your coat, hat, ear muffs, gloves on!” “Ma, it’s 50 degrees outside” - but now her disease and my peri-menopause is not a good combination.
This week mom is besides herself and I’m annoyed that the microwave went kaput. Even though I dreamt of a fancier one my husband rushed to get a new microwave with big buttons and large print so mom could see and understand easily.
You see …she needs to make Instant Cream of Wheat for breakfast. It used to be Oatmeal, but she really can’t alter from the routine and when the Oatmeal ran out and she got used to Cream of Wheat it meant I always had to get Cream of Wheat. The point is that it is the something she does, in fact, do for herself (and one thing I don’t have to do!) But — as my husband anticipated —- when the microwave broke mom was totally confused and besides herself.
The funny thing is the old microwave had a busted electronic viewer so we never really could see the timer, but mom knew to press the start button twice for 2 minutes.
I hate to say it but she’s almost like a mouse in the lab trained to do something a particular way. She grasps to the routine, to the things she knows because I think there’s a part of her that realizes she cannot comprehend new things. Change is terrifying. I imagine this is where a lot of anger must come from when I hear of other dementia and Alzheimer's victims lashing out at their caregivers. In my caregiver group they describe patients who turn from a serene and calm parent or spouse to the Incredible Hulk in seconds just because they have to take a shower or visit family. Well, maybe they forgot the family, maybe they can’t recall what to do when taking a shower?
So far my mom is not showing too much anger, but her frustration is growing and I know will get worse. I think her daughter (that being yours truly), shows more anger because I am not a patient teacher to a mentally healthy person let alone my elderly mom and my kids are not toddlers anymore. I don’t want a toddler anymore. I want my mom, the one who used to cook for me and show up with presents and treats no matter what the occasion. I want my mom.
The night we got the new microwave my husband, God bless him, showed mom how to make her Cream of Wheat. - “Put the cereal in the bowl, put the milk on top” etc. etc He gave simple directions “and press 2” He did this the night before breakfast so that she would know what to do in the morning.
However, as soon as my husband left the kitchen mom turned and asked me again: “ I press the 2?” “Yes,” I said, admittedly distracted by my phone.
But a few minutes later I realized that my mom was walking back and forth to this new microwave, touching buttons and getting completely distraught. And the microwave was on with nothing inside.
Mom saw that I noticed her, “I pressed 2. When will I know the thing is done?” “Mom, there’s no food inside now, it’s for tomorrow”. She just stared at the empty microwave and asked, “now what?”
When I was growing up I remember my mom making intricate gourmet meals almost every day carefully selected from The New York Times cookbook, delighting my taste buds on an otherwise boring school night. I remember, I HAVE to remember how she cooked holiday meals for 20 - 30 people - Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day (and BTW managing to get every gift on my wish list). Now she does not understand how to use a microwave.
If a mouse is used to following a certain path to get to the cheese, but then you put a wall up in its regular path, the mouse, /after some trial and error, learns a new way to get to his food. In my mother’s case taking away the old microwave closed ALL paths. She couldn’t learn a new way. The only things I can do is try hard to be patient, write down my memories of her, and hope that I can learn new ways of communicating with this strange person, because her mental paths are closing everyday and my old mother is fading away.
