Dementia Diary: "Everything's Funny!"

She said today that everything's funny. It's true: she fell after her shower, and Laura her sitter couldn't get her up without help: that was funny.  The med tech had more than twelve pills, inhalers, and creams for her: that was funny. "After this, I won't need breakfast," she always says.

 I've got a few punchlines that make her laugh so hard that she stops and bends over, always in places inopportune -- automatic doors stuck open until she moves, or in front of the restaurant kitchen where two waiters waited.

Here are some guaranteed laugh lines:

• "There's nothing wrong with my knees," she says, before she tries to stand.  But when we walk, she looks down and says, "Why are my feet making that noise?"  Because you're shuffling, Mom. I observe that she walks like Godzilla, swaying side to side.  She invariably slaps my shoulder, and I yell "Child abuse!" 
•  We avoid curbs, ever since she face - planted at the curb at Target.  Picturing that cracks her up.
  
• Dressing, she always notices in the mirror the "hole" at the back of her head, a balding spot. I promise that I'll cover it with my hand, or say that I have a baseball cap for her to wear. Big laughs.
  
• As we go out to lunch, we pass a community room where all the wheelchair - bound patients sit with vacant stares. "We're going out to lunch," I say, "but they're already out to lunch." She loves that.
  
• When we get in the car, I help her to fasten the seat belt. I say, "I've got to tuck you in."  
•  She says she hasn't got any purse or money or anything; I tell her she's like the Queen -- "You live in this palatial building, chauffeurs drive you everywhere, and you have people to handle your finances."  She laughs until she can't breathe when I tell her that the manager here calls her "Princess."

Today, she cracked me up with the observation, "My underwear is getting bigger." She can't believe that she now weighs more than I do, because her walking and exercise are so limited.

And did I mention the one about Sassy?  "Your little dog died a couple years ago, Mom," I replied to her sadly.  "Good!" Mom said.  "I haven't fed her anything!"

There was the shopping list posted to her mirror: "Wine. Cigarettes."  You haven't smoked in 50 years, I said.  "Well, you don't want me to  live forever, do you?"

Maybe not.  But so long as she's alive, I hope she can keep this sense of humor.

See more at my page, Dementia Diary.