Hullo. I'm taking the day off. I deserve it, right?

Had a weird day yesterday. Slightly hungover + grandmother visiting = bad mood.

My grandmother has Alzheimer's disease. I quote, from Wikipedia: it is "characterised clinically by progressive intellectual deterioration together with declining activities of daily living and neuropsychiatric symptoms or behavioral changes. The most striking early symptom is memory loss (amnesia), usually manifest as minor forgetfulness that becomes steadily denser with illness progression, with relative preservation of older memories. As the disorder progresses, cognitive (intellectual) impairment extends to the domains of language (aphasia), coordinated movement (apraxia), recognition (agnosia) and those functions (such as decision-making and planning) closely related to the frontal lobe of the brain, reflecting extension of the underlying pathological process."

Basically: my grandmother has dementia, and is suffering from memory loss. Sometimes, she doesn't remember my name, or my mom's name. She recognizes us, but she'll call us "honey" or "darling" instead of using our names.

According to the article, she will soon find it more and more difficult to speak, and to move. She won't recognize us. Eventually, and this I found out from my former psychology teacher and current mentor Iaa, her brain will forget how it's supposed to make the lungs breathe and the heart beat. It's one of the most horrid ways a person can die, I think. Any way is horrible, but when your body forgets what it's been doing non-stop for the last 80 years or so, it's just sad.

My grandmother is convinced that there is some kind of thief harassing her, and breaking in to her apartment on a regular basis. How else is she to explain the fact that some of her clothes are missing, or lying in places she doesn't remember putting them? Or the food that is eaten, but that she only remembers buying? It's just a way to reason, to make the illogical seem reasonable. This, with the thief, it's been going on a for a few years, I think. Maybe two... I'm not sure. My grandmother has paid the police office a few visits, explaining, in her broken Swedish, which clothes are missing and what's going on. Often, when she's visiting here, she asks for a few pieces of paper and a pen, because she wants to write down what's been stolen.

How do you explain a fatal disease to someone who feels she is entirely healthy? My grandmother really is healthy - she doesn't have any physical diseases or blemishes, even though she's in her mid-70's.

It's a bit like that old joke: a man is waiting for the doctor to deliver his diagnose. The doctor walks in to the room and says, "I have good news and I have bad news". The man says, "Okay... bad news first, then..."The doctor goes, "Alrightie. The bad news is that you have Alzheimer's." The man says, "Oh... and the good news?" "Well, you'll forget it withing ten minutes!"

As soon as you're able to explain the disease to my grandmother (who didn't know about it even when she wasn't ill), she agrees to take her pills and to not go to the police again. An hour later, she's almost crying because my parents are telling her that there is no thief, and that she's just making it up. How can she be making it up? She's not crazy. She knows that there has to be someone coming to her apartment, stealing her things. There's no other explanation!

My grandmother's poor memory makes it very difficult to have a normal conversation with her. No matter what you're talking about, she'll be repeating the same questions and comments over and over again, not knowing that she's already said them 8 times before. You'll try changing the subject a few times, but it doesn't matter. She'll be sitting there, saying the exact same things, thinking she's having a normal conversation. You want to speak to her, because you want her to know that you care, but after a while, your patience is gone and you have to choose between being snappy or just leaving her. My mom probably takes on the heaviest burden here - she has to keep my grandmother busy when she comes to visit, and she has to talk to her, ask her why she hasn't washed her clothes ("the thief took my clean laundry"), why she's wearing light summer shoes in the middle of the winter ("oh, it's not that cold, besides, I've always been healthy, I won't catch a cold") and everything else.

Yeah, that's Alzheimer's disease. And oh yeah, did I mention it's genetic? I'm getting it too. And in 25 years, I'll be taking care of my mom the way she takes care of my grandmother. My mom always says I have to shoot her when she'll be like grandma is now. All for euthanasia.

The point of this entry was that yesterday was a boring and sad day because my parents were annoyed by me and my grandmother, and I was anooyed by them, my grandmother and myself. My grandmother was probably annoyed by the thief. The end.