![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Jan. 24th, 2021
sunday morning without mom.
Jan. 24th, 2021 10:26 amit kind of occurred to me, about this haunting moment with my mom a couple of years ago. she was begging me to let her live with me, to take her out of her caretaker's home. she was angry and sad and beside herself with fear and grief and frustration and worry. she said, "If you don't, I'll be dead!" And i didn't know what to say to her because she was right. she knew she was going to die there. I knew it, too.
But I realize now, that what she wanted me to take away was the dementia. It wouldn't have mattered if she lived with me or not. It was the illness that was killing her, that she wanted so desperately to get away from, not her caretaker. The fact that she had to be cared for by someone else was just a symptom of the real problem. A problem none of us could fix.
It makes me want to go into dementia research. It really does. I think there are ways out of this. But they are myriad and complicated and take tons of trial and error, and they take early intervention, earlier detection. I would like to contribute to that developing science, genuinely I would. But I'm not a doctor or a researcher. some people though, as amateurs, can make real contributions to science, that was just shown to me in the Fantastic Fungi film, that Paul Stamets guy is an amateur and he has contributed a ton to mushroom research and understanding and development.
It's something to contemplate, going forward.
right now I am just struggling with how to make the most of the time I have left. I feel very very fragile and tiny and like a droplet in the ocean trying to hold onto her shape, her individuality, her selfness, in a sea of forces far beyond her control. it's scary and it makes me feel tired and overwhelmed. it's a lot. it's too much.
But I realize now, that what she wanted me to take away was the dementia. It wouldn't have mattered if she lived with me or not. It was the illness that was killing her, that she wanted so desperately to get away from, not her caretaker. The fact that she had to be cared for by someone else was just a symptom of the real problem. A problem none of us could fix.
It makes me want to go into dementia research. It really does. I think there are ways out of this. But they are myriad and complicated and take tons of trial and error, and they take early intervention, earlier detection. I would like to contribute to that developing science, genuinely I would. But I'm not a doctor or a researcher. some people though, as amateurs, can make real contributions to science, that was just shown to me in the Fantastic Fungi film, that Paul Stamets guy is an amateur and he has contributed a ton to mushroom research and understanding and development.
It's something to contemplate, going forward.
right now I am just struggling with how to make the most of the time I have left. I feel very very fragile and tiny and like a droplet in the ocean trying to hold onto her shape, her individuality, her selfness, in a sea of forces far beyond her control. it's scary and it makes me feel tired and overwhelmed. it's a lot. it's too much.