Not your average teenager

By Jessica B

My mom and dad would drop my sister and I off at my grandparent’s house, when they went to work. My grandpa would take us to school and pick us up and we would hang out till my mom picked us up. This is one of the many memories I have with my grandparents.

My grandma is 90 years old and has Alzheimer's. My family and I are my grandma’s care-givers. We started taking care of my grandma when my grandpa passed in 2014.

My mom and aunt share their experiences.

Alzheimer's disease is a brain disorder that gets worse over time. Alzheimer's disease causes the brain to shrink and brain cells to eventually die. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia. Dementia is a gradual decline in memory, thinking, behavior and social skills, according to Mayo Clinic - Alzheimer's disease.

I remember the first night we stayed at my grandma's house…was a Friday and my aunt called saying that my grandma wanted to go home, so we moved my parents' bed to my grandma’s house and my sister and I stayed in the spare bedroom.

Mom: “We had to move in with her to make it easier for everybody to adjust to taking care of her. We pretty much changed our daily routine around my mother to be able to take care of her.”

When my mom goes to work at night during the week, I help my grandma go to bed and give her her pills. On the weekends, I make her lunch and watch her to make sure she doesn’t do anything dangerous. She escaped once.

Mom: “…She has escaped once. That was very scary. She didn’t go very far. We were able to find her so we had to padlock our gates.”

Recently, it’s been harder to get her to eat and take her pills. We have been giving her Ensure and when she asks for coffee during the day or at night, I just give her Ensure and tell her it's coffee. 

Mom: “Her favorite part of the day is her breakfast and her coffee in the morning. She loves her coffee.”

My aunt also helps us take care of my grandma. We have an arrangement where we take care of grandma one week and then my aunt takes over the next week. This week is my aunt's week so on Monday, she came to our house to pick up grandma. Next week, my mom will pick up my grandma at my aunt's house.

Mom: ”That works out really well. It helps us get our sanity back and then we are ready for our week.”

Some days are more stressful than others. Some days, she just starts talking about nonsense and keeps talking for what feels like hours. If you ask her to stop, she gets mad and tells you to stop talking when you weren’t even talking in the first place.

Aunt: “Sometimes I sing and then she will sing with me. Sometimes if I tell her to shut up, she won’t shut up that doesn’t work. So singing sometimes is the best thing, she will sing along with me.”

Mom: “When she doesn’t stop talking, that can be very challenging. It becomes annoying and stressful at the same time... We always have a stock of lollipops. It helps that while she sucks on a lollipop, she will be quiet...”

When my mom was growing up, they would eat soup everyday. Soup fed the whole family and was cheap to make because in Portugal, my mom’s family had a garden where they would grow vegetables like kale and potatoes. As long as I can remember, at least once a week, my grandma would make Portuguese-style soup. She would invite my family and sometimes my aunt to come eat soup. It became a tradition to go to her house and eat soup.

Mom: “Some days she has a better appetite, some days she has no appetite at all, she doesn’t want to eat anything you prepared for her… her appetite has changed. She doesn’t eat things she used to eat before.”

For the Warrior Times, this is Jessica Brasil.