Descent into Alzheimer's Disease

I reach for the mayonnaise to spread onto Mom’s sandwich. I unscrew the lid and dip in the knife and do a double take. It takes a minute to register that I am looking at applesauce. Mom loves to play in the food these days. Mixing and matching is her game. She puts cottage cheese in the yogurt, grape jelly in the applesauce, and cole slaw in the potato salad. I find slices of bread all over the place. Sometimes it’s wrapped in a tissue or tossed into the cookie jar. Of course, it is always hardened and crusty when I discover it.

I’ll fix a nice hot cup of coffee and when I pour in the cream, orange curdled chunks emerge from the half and half container (she mixes orange juice with it - that is when she doesn’t drink it all up).

She pours her coffee onto her food. In the mornings, she always leaves me a little bowl of coffee where her oatmeal or cereal used to be. Other people put their napkin in their plate when they’re finished - Mom uses coffee. She also pours her coffee in with her juice and creates something even she won’t drink.

Speaking of drinks, recently she has discovered the fun of stuffing bread into bottles and cartons. At first when I got a big chunk in my glass while pouring juice, I thought it was pulp. Then I thought it was bread, then I wasn't sure. Chris confirmed my bread suspicion. I also walked in on Mom cramming bread into a bottle of root beer.

"Oops, don't do that." I blurted out.

The bread was safely tucked in the neck of the bottle, but as I tried to pick it out with a toothpick, I was only able to retrieve half of it, thus causing the rest to kerplunk into the pop.

Sometimes she hides entire packages of lunch meat or pounds of cheddar cheese. She filled the parmesan cheese with liquid of some sort. I have knocked around the idea of locking the refrigerator, but Chris doesn’t think I should. I’m not sure I should, either. ‘Cooking’ is obviously something she is enjoying and I’ve stopped throwing out all of her mixtures. If she will still eat it, I just serve it ‘as is’. So what if her applesauce has purple chunks.

Don’t worry, if I invite you to lunch I promise not to have sandwiches served on crunchy bread, made with meat I found behind the bread box. I’ll take all the curds out of your yogurt and only serve white cream in your coffee. If you’re wise you won’t ask for dessert.

Matthew 6:25 ¶ Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?