Will it ever be the end? Remember in the first instalment, my mother, who is a generation younger than my MIL, still lives in our home. Admittedly, she has been her twenty-five years and has not required any sort of long-term physical support except the occasional broken foot, twisted ankle and other such ailments that keep her from walking her beloved Schnauzer.
It was pretty soon evident that my MIL was losing much of her short-term memory and any slight change in the well-established routine of years was not good. We managed to keep our lives as normal as possible for our girls, include the whole family in events and enjoy our time together. Soon it became more and more difficult to leave the house for any length of time for fear of not being on hand if needed. We installed a nana cam so that we could watch her in her living and dining room from anywhere. We had family members also keep tabs especially when they were about to phone her in case she was napping so they would not wake her abruptly.
This system worked for quite a while, and we all managed to maintain our freedom and sanity to a limited degree. The shifts in memory decline were often very subtle and like expecting a baby, it was a gradual change over months and months. I know for some people who only visited infrequently the change was more dramatic, but we all survived in this bubble.
