Gotta Have a Distraction From Alzheimer's

Other than my sister, I don't know anyone but me who reads a cookbook in bed. We both love food, cooking, the whole process of creating something from raw or basic ingredients. It's an opportunity to be original or not but at the very least, it's playing with food. It's a new recipe we haven't tried before or an old favorite. Did I mention we love food? Our conversations center on food or mom, depending on our mood. Sometimes after we discuss mom and her various problems,we find comfort describing a recipe we've tried or want to try. Cooking is a distraction. You can't very well be worrying or thinking about something else when chopping or slicing unless you don't mind losing a digit. If your mind wanders to anything else, you are likely to skip an ingredient or do something wrong. If you begin to think about mom's latest skin tear or falling incident in the middle of cooking, you are guaranteed a mistake of some variety. We push the problems of the day aside and concentrate on the recipe at hand.

When we plan on having mom over to dinner, it's a week-long chat about what to serve. Naturally, we want to give mom some of her favorites so we take that into consideration when planning the menu. We also have to time the whole meal to avoid mom's worst time of the day. Sun downing, they call it. It's the end of the day when the sun goes down. The diminishing daylight seems to negatively affect people with Alzheimer's. We try to pick her up following her afternoon nap yet before it gets too late. We often scramble to keep mom happy when the potatoes Anna casserole or the like is still cooking. As much as we enjoy cooking, we don't have it down to a perfect science and often miscalculate the cooking times. This is when my husband, Dave, comes into play. He teases mom and makes her laugh. Sis and I have another glass of wine to ease the anxiety we are feeling while mom moans or starts in with her "Oh no-ing".

We produce our masterpiece-of-a-dinner and give and receive praise from each other and the others at the table. Usually mom eats heartily as it is at least an hour later than her usual meal time. Her mood improves, as does ours, and we eagerly anticipate our dessert; something we have only because mom wants it. At least that's what we tell ourselves.

After dinner we either do an hour of karaoke singing which mom enjoys or quickly get her back into the car depending on her level of comfort. Mom is always very, very appreciative of the "outing" and tells us over and over again how kind we are. Sis and I are generally tired from a long day of cooking and anxiety over mom's behavior. However, the next day, refreshed from a good night's sleep, we often rehash the dinner. We comment that this needed more salt while that was an amazing taste sensation and so on. Our love of cooking has once again brought the two of us closer together while also providing joy for mom.