My Mom passed away just last week at sge 89, after living with me for almost 5 years after Dad passed away in 2017. Her last year she spent in a state of advanced vascular dementia and, Iike you, I think we excused away all the earlier stages that preceded it. Sadly, we simply don't know what we don't know, and no one in our family had experience with dementia before Mom.
Three weeks before she passed away, we moved her into a lovely, expensive memory care facility, with lots of dementia appropriate activities, weekly manicures and hand massages, bingo, chair yoga, and daily story time. She loved the food and was actually having some fun during the daytime hours after living basically in isolation at my house ever since the pandemic hit.
Her insurmountable hurdle was the nighttime hours and "sundowning." At night she became very paranoid and was certain everyone there was trying to "do her in." Last week, as the caregivers were trying to help her get ready for bedtime, she was struggling against them and broke her hip. She had surgery the next day to repair the hip and within an hour after coming out of recovery, she simply stopped breathing.
It's another long, sad story about how our bodies can outlive our mental capacity when dementia strikes. What I learned is much the same as you. We should have acted sooner in getting her to memory care. The ladies in her facility that are doing well there, and have been there 2, 3 or more years, were not as far along in their dementia journey as Mom. If we had acted sooner, Mom would have had better mental capacity to adapt and get to know her care givers, and they her.
Regardless, we did the best we could for Mom. I hope somehow she knows. I know I have not even started to come to grips with the loss of my Mom, but with dementia loss is a lifestyle, and death comes by a thousand cuts. It is a brutal, horrible disease.
The one thing we did right was we had Dad and Mom do their wills and trusts before we lost either one of them, so their wishes are clear. It's a huge step and goes a long way toward keeping family from painful fights over leftover assets when everyone is already raw and hurting.
Blessings to you, my friend as you weather the storm.
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