Thankful for blessing of family

I am blessed to have family to spend the holidays with. 

A warm gathering of lively friends.

Camaraderie, conversation, laughter.

Kind, caring, to make a gluten free turkey.

Extra work out of love.

A comfortable place to spend time.

 I am so thankful for these delightful folks.

Gracious, welcoming, warm.

Thank you.

 ....

...

..

.

Alzheimer's Disease, dementia,...

I watch General Hospital.  Over many months they have had a story about Alzheimer's Disease.  Mike Corbin, father of Sonny Corinthos, has Alzheimer's Disease.  They have told the story well, detailing Mike's gradual evaporation, from a vibrant, funny, and very in the moment man, slowly disappearing into a terrible state that is the final stages of an insidious illness.

My mother died from Alzheimer's disease.  As I watch this past Monday's episode Mike's friend Stella is talking about what might constitute a "good" day for Mike.  She is asking: ..what do mean by good? Is he trapped in some memory of the past? Is he lucid or stoic as if in a trance....

And my thoughts turn to my mother.  She was not trapped in the past, struggling with awful memories as some of her roommates at the nursing home were.  Lillian was just disappearing very slowly.  I think that was a good thing, but it hurts to think of it.  To have one's self disappear gradually, until they are almost bland, and yet she retained enough self to not become nearly catatonic.

My mother had one roommate who seemed to be reliving an unsettling memory. The poor woman would talk to someone not present, and it was not a pleasant memory, but a slightly fearful memory.  And she relived this event in cycles,...it came back to her and started over again at regular intervals.  No one could interrupt the scenario once it began in her.  The poor woman; I never heard her have any kind of conversation with anyone - she just relived a fraught piece of her life over and over again.  And she was not the only one going though that.

Others rant angrily, over and over repeating the same tirade of apparent nonsense.  The staff struggles to calm them down once they begin the rant, because these unfortunate ones work themselves into a near frenzy.  It is sad and frightening to witness.  May God grant them peace.

Too many sit, nearly catatonic. They may cooperate and do what the staff asks of them: please sit here or let's do this.... Or a spoon is placed in a hand and a the meal indicated, and perhaps the patient will feed him or her self, or not, in which case someone will sit and patiently feed them.

Really the most one can do is be patient. Sit with them. Read to them - even if it appears that they are not listening. Be present. I believe they know someone is with them.

My mother began to disappear, but it was gentle for her. There were no fraught memories, she was as lucid as the disease would allow.  She was not animated, but she was not still, in control of her movements, able to move about in her wheelchair.  I don't know much of her behaviour when I was not present.  I know that she knew when it was Saturday, because that was the day I visited her.  Saturdays the staff would wake her, she would open her eyes and softly say, "It's Saturday. My daughter is coming to visit me today."  It was the only day of the week that she did not ask her care-givers, "what day is it?" every 15 minutes. I could animate her for a few hours once a week.  But she was disappearing, slowly fading away.  

it is a hard thing to witness

....
...
..
.

Gluten in the holiday season...

Party scene:

Welcome to the party, the hostess begins by explaining that some of the food is Gluten Free. She did this special for me because I have Celiac Disease. Everyone appears to be listening to her. She explains that the 2 smaller pizzas are Gluten Free and asks attendees to NOT take any of those if they are NOT required to be Gluten Free.

Let’s not rush the food table now, we don’t want to look like pigs.

Oh, there are 4 people ahead of us in line… 3 of them think those Gluten Free pizzas look good, despite there being regular pizzas with the exact same toppings…. They help themselves to the Gluten Free pizza,… now I feel obligated to overload my plate with most of the rest of those SMALL Gluten Free pizzas, lest I go hungry otherwise.

Oh, yes, there is a Gluten Free salad, with no croutons in it… but someone carelessly dropped the only serving utensil for that salad. I watch as they shrug and grab the serving utensil out of the salad with the croutons in it, and plunge that utensil into the Gluten Free salad… no salad for me today. *sigh* That was all of the Gluten Free food for the main meal, so I only get Gluten Free pizza, and not enough to satisfy my hunger either.

The hostess stops by my table, and I pretend that I had plenty to eat and thank her for remembering to have some Gluten Free food for me. And she tells me that the red velvet cupcakes are Gluten Free! So when the desserts are on the food table I run up and take 3 of those Gluten Free cupcakes for myself. I do not feel guilty for doing so, because so many of the people at this party are careless pigs, who do not pay attention or are too ignorant to ask what Gluten Free means.

---------------------------

This happens to people with Celiac Disease ALL THE TIME. You have NO IDEA how hurtful it can be to watch while everyone else eats anything they want, but I am served a plain salad of iceberg lettuce. 

Try not eating the food, and just watch the faces of everyone in the room... they are joyfully devouring whatever they please. 

And: NO, I don’t want to eat before the party and then watch everyone else eat/enjoy the foods I cannot have (smell the delectable scents) – because those foods would make me extremely ill for the next several weeks. That is no exaggeration,… recovery time from being glutened can take weeks, and cause other complications. It will knock you flat, with intestinal cramping and watery diarrhea.

Celiac Disease is AUTOIMMUNE, it’s a serious illness. Autoimmune disease means that my lifespan will be shorter.... because I have had Celiac Disease my entire life, but was not diagnosed until I was over 50. The damage done cannot be undone. 

link: can-celiac-disease-cause-early-death

link: new-clues-to-risk-from-celiac-disease#1

link: what foods to avoid if you have Celiac Disease

link: surprising-products-that-contain-gluten

link: an-open-letter-to-skeptical-health-care-practitioners

link to celiac.com website


....
...
..
.

My Favorite Year

link to My 1972 playlist

As I listen to my 1972 playlist for a third time, and contemplate that time in my life, I realized that 1972 is my favorite year.  In the past I have never felt that any year could be singled out.  I guess this comes with age and reminiscence.  

I no longer have anyone to discuss such things with,... at least not anyone who was there with me.  And I never confided my true self to another human being; never shared my inner self with anyone about that particular time in my life.  

It was a time of awakening, of new awareness about self, about life, loss, maturity, and secrets.
Partially through music I was growing to understand grown up feelings. Empathy, sympathy, love. It was a time of innocence, but also a time of growth emotionally and spiritually. It was a time of hope, looking to the future and having the whole world to explore.

M*A*S*H first episode

link to Billboard Top Pop Hits-  songs of 1972

....

...

..

.

The year was 1972

1972, my favorite year...

A few years ago I managed to acquire the first 12 episodes of The Streets of San Francisco (a Quinn Martin production), on dvd for cheap.  I put that in a box with a bunch of other dvds and pretty much forgot about it until recently.

1972 Ford Galaxie driven by Micheal Douglas season 1 episode 3

Karl Malden was a very fit 60 year old who looked younger than he was… and Michael Douglas was a baby-faced, wavy haired, 28 year old with a beautiful smile. 

What a pleasure to rewatch a television program I barely remember from a much simpler time….

1972.  Local phone numbers were 7 digits long,… telephones had rotary dials… most automobiles were huge, lumbering creations that drank gasoline at an insane rate.

1972 was the year U.S. President Richard Nixon ordered the development of a Space Shuttle program.

The 1972 Olympics were held in Sapporo Japan.

Roberta Flack was singing Killing Me Softly with his Song.

In February U.S. President Richard M. Nixon made an unprecedented 8-day visit to the People's Republic of China and meets with Mao Zedong.

In March the Pioneer 10 spacecraft was launched from Cape Kennedy, to be the first man-made satellite to leave the solar system.  

And: Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull is released, a concept album supposedly written by an 8-year-old boy, Gerald Bostock.

The movie masterpiece The Godfather premiered. Other 1972 movie releases included: Deliverance, Jeremiah Johnson, The Getaway, Cabaret, and Silent Running.

April 17. 1972 – The first Boston Marathon in which women are officially allowed to compete.

Comedian George Carlin is arrested by Milwaukee police for public obscenity, for reciting his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" at Summerfest.

The Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida nominates U.S. President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew for a second term.

Bobby Fischer defeats Boris Spassky in a chess match in Reykjavík, Iceland, becoming the first American world chess champion.

The television series M*A*S*H begins its run on CBS.

October 13, 1972 – Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571: A Fairchild FH-227D passenger aircraft transporting a rugby union team crashes at about 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in the Andes mountain range, near the Argentina/Chile border. Sixteen of the survivors are found alive December 20 but they have had to resort to cannibalism to survive (for 68 days in desolate, snow shrouded mountains).

Atari kicks off the first generation of video games with the release of their seminal arcade version of Pong.

Apollo 17 (Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans, Harrison Schmitt), the last manned Moon mission to date, is launched and The Blue Marble photograph of the Earth is taken. Eugene Cernan was the last astronaut of the era to walk on the Moon.

The Big Blue Marble by the crew of Apollo 17

December 26 – Former United States President Harry S. Truman dies in Kansas City, Missouri.

Burt Reynolds poses nude for the centerfold of the April edition of Cosmopolitan.

Popular television programs included: All in The Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Sanford and Son, Maude, Gunsmoke, and Marcus Welby M.D.

Top songs included Rocket Man (Elton John), Lean On Me (Bill Withers), Back Stabbers (The O’Jays), Garden Party (Rick Nelson), Hurting Each Other (The Carpenters).

references:

link to: Wikipedia 1972

link to: The_Blue_Marble (Apollo 17)

link to: Top 100 songs of 1972

link to: Top Grossing Movies of 1972

link to: Top American Muscle Cars of 1972

....

...

..

.