My Mom and Age Related Macular Degeneration

Several years ago, I made a personal journal for my mom. At the time, my dad was in declining health and so was my aunt Sadie, my mom's remaining sibling. I felt that this might help her escape the stress of her day-to-day life. I took a book and gessoed all the pages and then water colored them. I added pictures and captions on all the pages to help get her started. I also collaged and personalized the cover for my mom. When I first gave to her, before my dad's death in 2005, she started writing in it. Then life took hold, and the writing stopped.

Today, my mom called and told me she came across that journal I made for her. She looked through it as best she could (with the magnifying monstrosity we got so she could read and view pictures) and said she wanted to revisit journaling.

This is big because my mom has not only been experiencing the decline of her vision over the years, but has had a hard time recently expressing herself. When she tries to relay a story, many of the words just escape her, making it hard to understand what she's saying. Now this isn't a new thing, yet her doctors seemed oblivious. She had an appointment with her doctor on Tuesday and did mention to him her concerns about her memory. The doc immediately set her up for an appointment with someone else to do an MRI on her head. That won't be until March, but it is progress. I still will never understand why this took so long (short of me not going with her to her appointments) but it appears that it is giving us all hope.

So, when she called me today, she said she would like my help in writing more in her journal. I was so excited to hear that. We will now be able to go through her book and she can tell me the stories and I can transcribe them for her. She also said she found two books that she would like to be able to read. I told her I'd get them on CD so that she can listen to them. This was HUGE. I am so happy that getting an MRI has given my mom hope. I am just not happy that it has taken so long to do and that I haven't been more persistent with her doctors.

Otherwise, I spent this weekend cleaning. It's funny how clutter can be so stifling. I am surrounded by clutter. I did not inherit the house cleaning gene, so I decided to spend most of the weekend on early spring cleaning. What a difference that makes. I also worked on some paintings and made four bracelets today.