Just found out about another of mother’s new habits today…………….. apparently, she digs into her diaper, pulls out her own feces and tries to eat it.
OK, not just tries, but has actually had some success.
I sat at the counter staring at the fake granite as the owner of the home and a caregiver told me about my mom’s latest behavior…………………. fatigue immediately came over me. I wanted to leave. I hadn’t even seen her yet and I just wanted to bail.
I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore.
My mom eats her poop.
Think about that. Remember that next time you have a shitty day at the office.
My
Mom
Eats
Poop
I can’t help but think about life and its purpose……………. or in my mom’s case, the lack of purpose. We hear people passionately fight about life, its meaning, blah blah blah……………. but what if there is no meaning. No plan. No God.
What if you’re simply a breathing pile of particles………………….. that’s it. Nothing more.
You have no special purpose in this life except to survive, like other creatures.
There is no God. And if there is a God. God is cruel. God is not merciful. God likes to sit back and watch reality TV…………………………… he’s watching your life unfold and doing nothing to stop bad things from happening to you.
God probably Tivo’s your life when he’s watching the mess that is my life play out.
Because it’s funny to see one of his most devout followers eat her own shit.
As I was driving home, I was think about God up in heaven…………………… and then I started thinking about fistfighting him. In heaven. His turf. I thought about pummeling him. For like hours. It felt good.
I probably even kicked him while the big guy was down.
Kick……………………
Stomp………………………..
Punch………………………………
I want to fistfight God.
I want God to feel my pain.
I want God to pay for what he’s done to my mother.
My Demented Mom 
I have to admit, I couldn’t even read this whole article. My Grandma has been doing the same thing since she was about 3 years into her disease…
Kathy, I’m sorry to hear of this latest development with your mom. I’m crying as I read this,for you, your mom for all of us dealing with AD/Dementia. I want to fist fight God with you.
A+++ rant – would read again!
I’m focusing on making REALLY good times with my mom every chance I get so that when I look back, the good things will outweigh the bad. Its the only thing I can control when everything else is out of control.
I LOVE your thought process. Right there with you. I’ve often said, if there is a god, I sure hope I get close enough to take a big swing at him.
ugh kathy, sorry to hear about this. i follow your blog and see your updates on the parents w/ ftd facebook group. i wanted to message you privately there in response to your request for suggestions but couldn’t find a way to do it. haven’t dealt with this yet but brainstorming: is there any flexibility to what your mom can wear? can she wear a one-piece pajama or top layer that doesn’t allow for easy access to the back (i.e. no elastic waistband bottom and no liftable nightgown). nightgown could be modified by adding a tie to the bottom…. if behavior can’t be modified, maybe just trying to prevent access (or at least complicate it sufficiently) would give a caregiver time to get to her to help her clean up.
I’m so sorry that you (and she) have to go through this. My Mom has Alzheimers and is still active and verbal. When my dad had colon cancer 16 years ago and ended up vomiting his own feces, as I often tell people, they’re not allowed to torture terrorists with something that awful. It’s a horrible, horrible thing to see your parent go through. My heart goes out to you—I so admire your strength in continuing to share this with us.
thanks so much for your kind note. i am so sorry you’ve had to deal with so much. stay strong. thanks, kat
thanks, i did find a place that sells alz clothing so i got her a couple of onsies and she actually managed to go thru the leg of one. its a struggle. thank you for your suggestions. i appreciate you brainstorming! kat
thank you. i appreciate your note…. yeah, sounds like you’ve got a good and very healthy plan… because control is something that goes fast. thank you! kat
thank you so much. kat
Hey. This sounds like a GREAT idea. When you get to heaven – and I have no doubt you will, I’d bet Jesus meets you personally, hands you some very good boxing gloves, and puts on a pair himself. You will get a chance to go at it for as long as you can go, and then when you are good and worn out with yelling and punching, He will take the gloves off both of you, and console you like you have never been consoled before. He will tenderly make sure that every darned and disgusting thing that ever happened to you and your mom is talked through and understood. And you will wish you could come back and explain it to the rest of us, but we will have to wait our turn.
What I believe about God and suffering may seem a little strange since I’m an RC post-Vatican II convert, but bear with me a moment. First, God does not really mind that much when we are *honestly* angry with Him. He knows we only see what we see and sometimes it does not look good at all. Lots of stories about these kinds of encounters in the Bible; He does not like it so well when people are just self-justifying and/or trying to trick Him, but when it comes to real suffering, He is no stranger to it. They gloss over a lot of the profound indignities heaped on Him in the Gospel accounts… we turn them into pretty pictures but it was not at all pretty. Wine mixed with “gall”? Hanging naked in front of His own mother? But more to the point, apparently the alternative to allowing suffering in this world, and sharing it with us as part of the plan, would have been to do what Satan wanted instead. That would have been to keep every bit of human existence under tight control, like “It” of Camazotz in the Madeleine L’Engle stories. When Peter objected to His telling the disciples how He must suffer, maybe that’s why He said, “Get behind me, Satan!” He apparently didn’t want puppets; He wanted people. It would be like the way a little girl who loves horses would not settle for a toy rocking horse, but would persist in wanting a real one. And horses, in real life, come complete with horse poop. I think, in this life, we only get to understand a little about the why of our own suffering, not so much about others’; C. S. Lewis’ works imply that several times, and there are hints about that in the Bible, that we can’t always expect to be told another person’s story.
My own suffering – not sure of all of it – mostly has made me a better physician – but really, sometimes I want to tell God I get the point about meds and side effects, how many more migraines (aka short trips to hell) do I really need to have? My mom and dad – they went through a lot; my mom was more dignified, with her vascular dementia, except a couple times when she got a little more confused or delirious; dad’s was more fronto-temporal and there were times he did some butt-pinching and grabbing or otherwise acted out with an aide or therapist. I’m a rehab doc for kids. I’ve gotten terribly interested in genetics for a lot of reasons, mainly to help diagnose and treat my MDA patients, but in the process of getting a little peek at the blueprints, I have to agree that we are each a pile of molecules, complicated enough to breathe, move, think, choose, and sadly eventually to wear out and break down, and, very definitely, “fearfully and wonderfully made.” I identify so much with your realizing how little control you have over the dementia and the behavior, and the pain of wanting to stop Mom from going downhill and dying, and then when you can’t do that, at least wanting to relieve her from all suffering, and you can’t. You can do a little to make it a little better, you can “be there” when you can (I was there for Mom when she passed, but not for Dad) and you can fuss over the right meds and the wrong meds and find them the adult onesies, but it does not seem like you have done anything that made a huge difference…well, maybe it means more than we think.
Definitely get some practice though because He’s going to be a very, very good boxer.