Celebrated moms birthday last week. With Alzheimer's, you can never be sure how someone will react to a situation, like a birthday party. Luckily, you can learn from past experiences and make adjustments as you go along. Moms last two birthdays provide a good example of this. For those not familiar with Alzheimer's, these examples are pretty typical. For those with a loved one with Alzheimer's, this will probably all sound familiar.
A year ago, it was moms first birthday after moving into the assisted living home. My sister and I wanted to do something special for her so we asked if they could make a cake, we reserved the small private dining room off the main dining room, we had lots of little party favors and balloons for everyone and we had the women mom normally sits with for meals join us as guests.
The cake was a highlight. The best birthday cake I've ever seen. We were expecting a small cake big enough for our little group, but they brought out a huge decorated pineapple cake that even had rose petals from the garden sprinkled across the top. The cake was big enough to feed every resident and staff and then some. Amazing.
Everyone had a good time. We ate, sang happy birthday, played with the party favors and mom opened a couple of gifts. Part of the time mom knew it was her birthday. Part of the time she wasn't sure who's birthday we were celebrating but she was enjoying herself anyway. After the party, we walked mom to her room. We visited there for a while and when we left for the day, everything seemed great.
You never know how problems will manifest themselves. The party must have been too much and left her overstimulated and agitated. She called several times a day angry because she wanted her car or she needed a ride home (referring to a place my parents had moved from about 15 years earlier). She needed to get dinner ready for her husband (who had passed away a few years ago) and even insisted that her parents were expecting her to visit. This went on for about 3 days before she calmed down and things got back to normal.
We learned our lesson. The next birthday would be much more low key.
This year I decided to take mom out for lunch. This would allow us to get out for her birthday yet keep things pretty routine since I take her out to lunch almost every week anyway. I also stopped on the way and picked up a couple of cupcakes (instead of a cake) so we could have something when we got back from lunch. I brought a candle to put in her cupcake ready to sing happy birthday to her but she wanted to skip all that and just eat the cupcakes. So that's what we did.
As mom walked around, the other residents wished her a happy birthday. The staff wished her a happy birthday and gave her a hug as they saw her. They taped a happy birthday sign and some balloons to the window near moms seat in the dining room.
My sister visited her separately to wish her a happy birthday.
This year went much better. We were able to celebrate her birthday, others got involved, and we kept it at a level that mom could handle. I visited her a couple days later and didn't notice any changes in her behavior.
It's like the subtitle of my site here says: "A learning experience". Things are always changing. You take in as much information as you can, learn from it, adapt and do the best you can. I guess my goal is to keep her safe, help her to live the best life she can and allow her to push her limits when she wants to.
Happy Birthday Mom!
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