Dementia is a disease centered around metrics. How long, how much, how many. How long will my mother remember me. How much medicine is effective without being detrimental or just pointless. How many years have we been doing this. Dementia is also about time. They even have this little test they give you when you start to lose your mind where you are basically given an analog clock with no hands and you are asked to write in the time. Many years ago my mother flunked this one.

After my mother’s time in the geri psych, she moved back to her adult foster care and brought with her the kit of psychotropic drugs to fight off what we have been calling Evil Twin. They make her more pleasant. They will also make her die faster. Last week when I saw her she was sitting in the shared living room smiling, looking me right in the eyes, trying to mutter along as I sang to her. She wanted to hold my hand, and when I took hers and kissed it, she spoke clearly for the first time in a long time – “Oh thank you.” How long had it been since we connected like that. I don’t know. I stayed with her a long time, played every song I could, and the other residents turned the volume off the Golden Girls marathon on the tv so they could listen along.

My mother’s meds are adjusted and tweaked constantly, as Hospice, and Mom’s geriatrician, and the AFC do what they can to make her as comfortable as possible. Lately this has not been easy. Her knees are causing her tremendous pain, and she shouts any time one of the care workers comes near her legs. How many days until the pain meds kick in. We are told two, maybe three.

Fluid has been a problem too, as it collects in her hands and feet as a side effect of one of the drugs that keep Evil Twin at bay. How much of that medicine will keep her pleasant and for how long. That’s a juggling act.

We are in a waiting and watching stage now. The anticipation is exhaustive. The nurse who runs the AFC looks at my mother so lovingly, so adoringly, and tells us Mom is one of her all time favorites. She hung twinky blinky lights and ornaments on the ceiling above my mother’s bed. She also told us she didn’t think Mom would make it to Christmas. How many days until Christmas. As of today it is 5. The last time I saw my mother she was so present and connected, and I thought nah, she’ll rally. She’s like that. But how much is enough. Only my mother gets to decide that.

When I came to see my mother today she looked like one of the many other residents that I could not bear to look at. The ones who have been propped up in their beds, wearing that gaunt, distant face. The ones who’s rooms I would glance into but pass by without really looking, for fear of what I would see. My mother looked like her body was working very hard to get ready for something very important, and necessary.

How many songs did I make it through today before the tears and tusks of snot choked me and forced me to stop. That one I have an answer to. Zero.