Fund Gloria's Journey to Dementia Care

My dears,

I have a crushing problem and am asking for your help. My lovely mother, Gloria, has dementia, and caring for her at home has become more than I can provide.

I have no illusions that I haven’t screwed this up by trying to keep Mom at home, but when one is up to one’s hips in alligators ... one simply pushes onward.

About five years ago, my mother was diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, and the neurologist told us she would only get worse: “Today is the best it’s going to get.” But we held onto hope, and the caregiving duties slowly began to form around me. Anyone who has been a caregiver knows the daily chores: managing the medications, booking and going to appointments, the shopping, the regular and emergency laundry. … Now, I’m helping her to bed, putting the toothbrush in her hand (Yes, this is your toothbrush, Mom), walking her down the hall and tucking her in.

We have a home health aide in the house 7 hours a day—Thank you for buying brilliant insurance, Mom—but the insurance will run out before the end of the year.

I have rather made a mess of this by waiting entirely too long, but the problem is, my mother and I have always loved each other. We would talk constantly, playing with words, being silly, enjoying life. I didn’t realize how much of her remembering I was doing for her, even then. She is at the point where she has lost major swathes of memories, and also cannot hang on to anything we discuss. Being around me, she is triggered, anxious to remember all the “things.” She knows I know, so she asks me. At this point, we’re cycling through the same conversations all day every day, like Where is my purse? I want to go home. What do you mean I sold the house? (Years ago.) Where are my parents? How long have they been gone?

And the questions return, sometimes 20 seconds later. I’m heartbroken and at my wits’ end. Sometimes she spirals out of control, and it can go on until 5 in the morning.

When I’m out on errands, I come home and the attendants tell me of cheerful conversations that have nothing to do with our past, or her worries about the present. She tells old trucking stories, and how she learned to cook on a woodfired stove. Her being with other people, rather than me as her memory bank, may be the key to a little more happiness right now. I didn’t notice so much of this because of the way we’d always finished each other’s sentences, inserting a familiar wisecrack, and then laughing…. But now, according to roommates, friends who visit, family with whom I’ve shared most of this, and people who know these things, I am officially in over my head.

It is time. Time to place Mom in a memory-care facility. We found a place that she liked when we visited a couple of years ago, and it has all the things she needs. But it’s expensive at first; my savings were consumed by medical expenses, my credit cards are maxed out, and I haven’t worked in 10 months. I’m trying very hard to keep up with it all, but I need help. The memory-care home has an initial $10,000 fee, a $7,800 deposit, and then I have to pay for her first 100 days at $7,800 a month. The good news is that after 100 days, Gloria’s VA Benefits will kick in and take care of everything. So, I need $36,000 to get Gloria into the housing, and I can only scrape together $4,000.

I wouldn’t ask if I weren’t at the end of my rope: Would you please help?

I know it’s a big ask, but if you could see your way clear to assist me at any level at this time, I offer my eternal thanks for helping me, and Gloria, the really great lady who raised me.

I’m deeply grateful for any and all help.

With love,

Steven