Alzheimer's Disease

I am going to attempt to write this entry as coherently as possible, but please, bear with me, as I have, roughly, a million and one emotions and thoughts fluttering around in my head about this subject and just need to get them out.

My grandma is currently has Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and she's been dying from it for the past few years. Unfortunately, she isn't the first person in the family to fall victim to the disease, although, I am much closer to her than the other family member. When people ask how she's doing, I never know what to say. Even on a good day, her best is still heading towards a certain death. So, how am I supposed to answer that? To say, "She's doing great,"...well, that's not really true. She might be doing great in the sense that she remembers who I am, but her brain is still shriveling up and she is still going to die, so, as I said, even on her best day, she's still doing pretty poorly... But, I just smile and shrug and hope they don't continue to press the issue.

Now, I'm not going to be so brash as to sit here and say that any disease is worse than another one. I've lost many relatives from everything ranging from prolonged battles with cancers to random accidents, so I feel that I can say with some measure of authority that Alzheimer's might be one of the worst, if not the worst, diseases to die from. It is hard not only on the individual, but also on the family. The repercussions of the disease are nearly immeasurable. Everyone I know that has been affected by the disease (myself included) agrees that we would rather take our lives than have to put ourselves and our families through the prolonged painful, degrading, and emotional process of living with and dying from AD. I don't even know where to begin...

Try to imagine, if you will, having to take care of someone on a daily basis. Now, you love this person dearly (whether they ever expressed that love back, now that's a different story). You take so much time and energy into caring for the person, working so hard to only momentarily bring a smile to their face, only to have them two seconds later either 1) not know who you are or 2) what they had just experienced. So, all this effort and struggle (and trust, it usually is a struggle, if not a down-right fight) you put into making them as comfortable and as happy as possible is forgotten in a matter of minutes...as if you never done anything in the first place. Do you know what type of love it takes to do this? Aaaand, on a daily basis??? Do you have any idea how much pain this brings?

And, the situation only gets worse when that individual was not necessarily nice or a "good" during their normal days. (This is a trend I am starting to notice as well...it seems that no matter how hard death is to deal with, it is always infinitely harder when it is someone genetically close to you that you actually don't really love or know that well, but you wind up spending their last days with them...but, this is a completely different story I'm digressing into...)

And then comes the guilt for not being there. We have lived way out here in Jersey since I was born, while the rest of the family has remained in Michigan. They are the ones dealing with this stuff on a daily basis. Sure, when we visit (which we have been trying to increase the amount of times we go home), we do as much as we can to take her to the doctors and clean things up and give the rest of the family a break from the monotony of this, but there is only so much you experience in ~10 day segments of time. Granted, those aren't necessarily the easiest weeks, and it is always difficult to get back on the plane and leave, knowing the situation you are leaving behind and how much of a benefit to other members of the family you are when you are there. Plus, there is only so much one can do over the phone/internet... We seriously considered moving to Michigan, especially after my graduation, but unless my mom can find a job within her company out there, we don't see that happening. But, you never know...it is still a possibility.

Finally, there is struggle with putting them in a nursing home, and knowing that that will probably be the death of them. Nursing homes in America are horrible. Patients are frequently abused or neglected - basically, left to die in their beds. And I really don't know how much I can ask from the staff at these facilities. Clearly, I don't expect abuse or complete neglect, but, there have been many times people in the family have gotten absolutely frustrated dealing with my grandma. Part of AD is the degeneration of the brain, resulting in a person of unstable emotions, a person who often and easily gets confused and lies (thinking they are telling the truth, mind you), a person is stubborn and hides things for no reason, one who becomes indignant one minute and then acts like an innocent 5-year-old in the blink-of-an-eye. There have been moments when we have all wanted to scream at her, and that's our own flesh and blood that we love. How much easier is it for a perfect stranger to come into the same experience and just give up and leave them be? Or to snap and shove them aside (not intentionally hard), but these are the elderly, and they have little strength, and one thing leads to another and one wrong slip can result in a broken hip or worse...

Either way, it is a lonely place, and you know that committing her there is sentencing her to death. Not that death isn't coming anyway, but still...nobody wants to be the one to "pull the trigger," let alone on their own mother.

There are many things I left out, but this situation encompasses too much. I haven't even touched upon the financial aspects of this whole thing or on the current living situation or on the joys of dealing with the government. There are just so many bittersweet, or just bitter, memories popping into my mind as I sit here and type. I even cried while writing this, and you know I don't really cry. I hate it, hate it, hate it!!! So, if you will, remember my family in prayers, even if you don't know us. I would really appreciate it.

Too Smart for Lies...

Now, I hate to toot my own horn, but I'm a let you in on a little something: I have an IQ last measured at 136. So, needless to say, I am classified as "gifted". (if you are ever capable of getting my ADD-mind to sit and focus for 10 minutes straight, you'd be impressed ...but, I digress) I say all of this not to blow myself up, but to let some people know that I am no fool. You can lie to my face all you want, but 99 times out of 100, I know right then and there that you are lying. The odd time out, I'll probably figure it out by the next time I talk to you. It is just like 99% of the bums on the street asking for bus fare: don't come to me begging for bus fare while you reek of old whiskey and beer...I know the deal!

So, why do I play dumb? Simple. The more I pretend to not know, the more people tend to talk and divulge information that I would otherwise have to con out of them in order to support my theory. In short, it makes my life simpler to pretend not to know, rather than to come out and combat lies head-on, only resulting in more lies and back-tracking. Moreover, half of the time, it is not worth the effort of confronting people. It either leads to more lies or some other type of increased drama, and rarely results in a simple apology and a statement of the already-known truth.

For those of you who do not know me, my biggest pet-peeve is lying...for many reasons. Namely, it is just soooo pointless. Most of the time, the truth will eventually show. And when it does, I swear, the longer it takes to surface, the larger the repercussions. Secondly, lying is, more or less, testing my intelligence. (This especially applies to men.) Like, really...do you think I am that dumb to fall for your silly, middle-school lies?!? Do you really think that I am that simple to believe your ill-conceived excuses?!? Do you realize 1) who you are talking to? 2) who I am connected to? and 3) what I am capable of? The answers to all three of those is obviously NO, otherwise, people would stop messing with me!

And then, there are the unprompted lies...the lies that come out of the blue when the person isn't even asked a question. I remember this girl from college was a compulsive liar and manipulator. Took most people, including myself, a while to realize that most of what was coming out of her mouth was a lie, a half-truth, or just purposefully misleading. Needless to say, she graduated with hardly any friends...hmmm...wonder why? It is one thing to lie when backed into a corner, still unexcusible, but at least it is understandable. Now, to just boldly spew forth lies for your own twisted enjoyment...?!? I recommend psychological help...and stay out of my life until you do so!

Granted, I will take partial responsibility for repeated instances of lying, for if I had taken the energy to nip them in the bud in the first place, perhaps people wouldn't repeatedly lie. Then again, some people are compulsive liars. Some people lie for fun. Other people lie even when they know that the other person knows the truth. I suppose, I cannot take too much credit for other people's behaviors, after all, they are their behaviors, not mine. And people wonder why I have trust issues...

Thank YOU, Dubya!

As you may or may not know, there is a film out belovedly entitled "W." Now, I personally thought that the movie was a parody based on the previews...that is, until I heard it was directed by Oliver Stone. How that fool ever came to be President, even with a Presidential father...the world may never know...

Want to know my opinion about W.? Sadly enough, I do believe that without this idiotic cowboy's 8-year-reign-of-terror, there is a good chance that Obama would not have won the Presidential Election. I am not too optimistic about the country I live in, nor about the intentions of its people. More often than not, I expect the worst out of American citizens. As such, I honestly believe that if W. hadn't sunken our nation into such all-time lows, the nation would not have been prepared to elect its first Black President.

Think about it. Had Bush been someone with half a brain and done a decent job, the US would not be in its horrible job and financial crises, would not be spending billions on some revenge war, and would not be hated by the rest of the world. Had he done as good of a job at protecting our National Bank and securing jobs for US citizens as he did fattening the pockets of the nation's wealthiest, then voters would have gone into the elections content and not looking for change...not looking for a savior from this disaster we have been lead into.

I was talking to some of my friends on election night and someone made a very good point. They said that in order to vote for Obama, you truly had to have the interest of the entire nation, especially if you were in the wealthier class of citizens. And it is so true...sad, but TRUE! That is a shame that we can say that people are now finally voting on a President based on the good of a nation, as a whole, and not by class. It is about time!

So I suppose I owe G.W. a note of thanks. Thank you for leading my nation into a black hole for the past eight years, for even if we all had to suffer and been made to look like fools, in the end, I got a Black President out of it! I might have lost some respect for some of my "friends" during the elections (that moment came when the wealthy, white, uber religious conservatives I went to high school with started changing fb statuses to Obama being the anti-Christ and quoting scripture to support...but, I digress)

(And NO, I did NOT vote Obama because he was Black, but because he was the only competent choice on the ballot...voting McCain would've been voting for Dubya again, only he might have died and been replaced with an even dumber hockey mom!)

Real quick before I leave... Two types of people I will never understand: Gay Republicans and Republican Latinos...not even why, but HOW?!?

Let Me Flyyy!

.:Rosa sat, so Martin could walk…
Martin walked, so Obama could run…
Obama is running, so we can fly:.

I attended an impromptu Obama rally this morning in North Philly with special guests Mary J., Diddy, and Jay-Z (yes, Bey made an appearance...by rolling down the car window :/ ) While they spoke maybe a total of 10min, Jay-Z quoted these inspirational three little lines. I know I've heard it before, so I'm not about to give him credit for it, but still, inspirational nonetheless.

A little more than 24 hours until I can say "My President IS Black!!!"...

...and if I cannot say that by the end of tomorrow night, I am sure that there will be riots across the country, including right here in Philly.

Say a prayer, everyone. Pray for the safety of Obama and his family, and that votes will be fairly counted...places are already throwing out absentee ballots and miscounting Obama votes for McCain...
If there is a repeat of the infamous FL'00 election-scandal, this nation is about to tear itself apart...