Saturday, September 22, 2007

"When I die I'm going to sit on a cloud all day & paint!"

Thats what my mum used to tell me growing up. She loved all things artistic.

Finding activities that keep mum occupied but not overwhelmed can be a challenge. We stumbled upon something new yesterday when I was cutting up some leaflets for work.

Mum now has a pile of old magazines and is cutting out pictures. She seems to be really enjoying it and I gave her a couple of folders to keep them in. She has spent hours cutting, putting them in folders, taking them out and doing it all over again. There are pictures and paper cuttings everywhere but she is really happy with what she is doing so I don't care about the mess.

Mum used to do a lot of art, so anything that is creative is an interest to her. I am used to it now but last year I got a real shock to see her struggle to draw a picture with the right perspective. Her drawings now are like that of a pre-school child. She does drawings at day care and brings them home for me to put on display. I feel like I used to when my children's drawings were proudly brought home to me when they were little.

There were so may art supplies when I cleaned out the house. She had saved her money and bought quality paper, pastels, oils, brushes and other supplies for when she retired. And although she did paint and draw over the years she never got to use all those supplies and now it is too late.

It is sad to see her lose such a wonderful skill. My home is filled with her paintings and sketches. Two of her paintings hang in my office. It has reminded me not to put off everything for when I retire. I need to do those things now.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow - what a great post. I have seen my mom's handwriting get worse & worse. She used to have amazing handwriting, and it's still quite good, but has declined. Incidently, my mom also loves cutting pictures out! She's got them in files also. When I visited her last, she was cutting out babies and children from the newspaper. She wants to put them on a bulletin board at her church. D

Anonymous said...

Hi Elanor, Thanks so much for your comments & encouragment on my blog. It helps to hear from someone who knows what we're going through. I have tried to ignore some comments, but I am still very raw about the whole thing. Time will heal I guess. It's just been 2 weeks since the diagnosis. Do you remember how quickly the Aricept worked? Mom has been so much happier and, like you said, much less frustrated. But it's only been 2 weeks and we keep wondering if we're just being overly hopeful. I don't think we are, but are results possible so early? D

elanor said...

mum showed signs of improving at about 2 weeks, it was funny because I forgot to tell the day care staff that she had started on the aricept and in the second week they asked me if mum was taking anything different because she was not jumbling her words as much and remembering the numbers at bingo faster.

She is due to go back to the neurologist next month to see if she can stay on it. I hope she can because it has made it easier for her.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info re: Aricept. So we're not imagining things! That's exciting! Mom wasn't as good yesterday, but I wonder if she's missed her pill. My sister was checking it out. D