Mom lived her life in service to others.  She worked hard and enjoyed her family and their life together.  When my dad was diagnosed with diabetes, she was by his side.  When he had open heart surgery, she was there.  When his lungs needed help with additional oxygen, she kept up with the deliveries.  And when he went on dialysis, she took him three times per week.

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One of the first signs was her forgetfulness in little things.  Since dad was sick, my sister and I thought she was just upset and overwhelmed with his illness.  She would get confused at the doctor's visits with him and had asked for one of us to go along with them at each visit.

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By the time Dad passed away, Mom was just trying to hold on.  She was having difficulty using the automated systems on the phone and when the TV needed a converter box, she couldn't get the concept of having two remotes. 

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She would try to cover by asking one of us to just take care of things for her.  She had preplanned well, so when she asked us to start writing checks to pay her bills "just to make sure there is no problem if you should need to", we didn't think much of it.

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Then she started having trouble knowing when to take her medicine.  We got her a pill organizer and that worked for a very short time.  Then she started having trouble getting the pills into the organizer. 

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The next issue was that an entire week's worth of pills was overwhelming to her.  We started helping her by putting them out one day at a time.  That worked for awhile, but then she would tell us she had taken them but when I checked on her after work, she hadn't taken them even though I had called her to remind her.  One time they were all gone so she had taken them all at once, even the ones she was to take at bedtime that made her sleep.

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Next came the not eating.  She just wouldn't fix herself anything to eat and she started dropping weight fast.  I started buying groceries for her and stopped by after work to get her dinner ready.  If I didn't eat too, she wouldn't eat.  The only choice I had was to have my husband meet me at her house for dinner.  I cooked for the three of us to make sure she ate. 

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Getting dressed in the morning started becoming more and more of a chore.  It would take her all morning to get out of her night gown into her clothes.    I started calling to check on her in the morning on my way to work in addition to cooking dinner there in the evenings.  Before long I couldn't get her to answer the phone so I ended up going to her house before work to check on her.  A couple of times I found her in the floor because she had fallen and couldn't get up.

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On the third fall I knew it was time to do something different.  We had kept her in her own home as long as we could.  Now it was time to check into assisted living facilities.

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This was a tough decision for everyone.  ​Click the "Choosing a Facility" tab for more of our story.