Humor and Alzheimer's

I am looking for real life humorous stories relating to Alzheimer's. This is a dark, serious disease and I hope that my desire to receive stories that offer laughter is not misconstrued as offensive. My hope is to provide levity. The intent is not to make fun of anyone's situation but hopefully by laughing we will survive easier, talk more openly, and be better caretakers of ourselves and others.

My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's several years ago. My mother is not who she used to be, but once I began to see her sense of humor, which still exists, and share her stories - often back at her and often with others, I began to feel healthier. This ability to see the humor and the silliness has allowed me to be with my mother, rather than back off from fear and frustration. I have been a better daughter and have given my mother better care.

My mother's condition is not a secret nor should my mother be a secret. We know the horrors, I want to share the comical which will open doors of the unspoken. I treat my mother with dignity and honor, but I can still see utter madness and craziness of her behavior - which can be very funny.

Comments

[Robert]

My mother Anne went to visit her mother. She brought our dog, Trooper. When they arrived her mother said to the dog, 'hey Trooper, thanks for coming - why didn't Anne come?' My mother pointed out that Trooper didn't drive himself and she, Anne, was the person standing in front of her. They had a good laugh. She made lots of 'mistakes' like this but we never knew if she was just pulling my mother's leg b/c she had a great sense of humor - which is how we remember her!

[susan]

wonderful to find this today after watching hbo last night - becuz we cried watchimng it except my mother aways made me laugh even after she was sick.my mom hated our dogs and never changed her mind on that, even if tried to tell me they were her dogs when we visited her.
my mom did tink i was her sister and made me think she really lost her mind until she beat my pants off everytime we played cards.

[Ed]

HBO didn't leave me w/ a lot of hope for my sister except
I do hear it gets alot more uplifting. As they say
irreverence is the only path to sanity and sometimes this
topic has made me feel crazy.If I think about the funny things my sister has done, I feel more acceptance and less frustration. Last week when I went to take her out, she was sitting with her socks on over her shoes waiting and we both laughed together when I changed it.
I agree with Donna that the more people talk about this
the quicker we will find the answer to the cure.
I'm sorry her dad is gone, I hope my sister is
with us for a long time!

[Jesse]

My father is always looking for his cigarettes. He masn't smoked in 50 years. He soon forgets and moves onto the next temporary distraction of interest. One day he may find the cigarettes.:)

[john]

Thats funny because my brother asked for a drink and cigarettes and asks everyone if he can 'bum a cigarette'. He stopped smoking 25 years ago - and drinking 20 years ago. I guess he's going back to a happier time. He just laughs when we tell him no one smokes and theres nothing to drink - then he tells us we're all boring. And he's right! He's still more fun than the rest of rest, even if he's had Alzheimers for 3 years. I'm sure it will get worst so we're all enjoying what we can.

[Kathy]

Th alzheimers piece on hbo was nigh was intersting more hopeful, i guess. i think my sister did do everything 'right' diet, exercise, mind active so i think it's something in the genes and not something the person is not doing. someone wrote above that their mother thought the daughter was her sister. my sister thinks i'm her mother and last week i said i'd prove i wasn't the mother by cooking a meal, including baking a cake. i could never cook but our mother sure could. once my sister tasted the meal i asked if she thought i was her mother and she said her mother was a much better cook that what she just ate so no you are NOT my mother. we both laughed at that for a long time.

[Julie]

Every mother's day i feel guilty b/c I hve a mother, stepmother, grandmother and mother-in-law. They don't all live near-by and I always think we should try to be with them all (when I'd really just like to go away for a weekend - as a mother's day gift to myself)This year I went to see my mother the week before mother's day and told it it was mothe's day. We had a nice time except I felt guilty for lying to someone who wouldn't know the difference. On mother's day we visited another mother and I came home to call my mother and confessed my BIG lie. She laughed and said she wouldn't know the difference so why bother telling her at all! We laughed because she was right, of course. I didn't feel guilty any more but I did feel resentfull because no one remembered me on mother's day - so next weekend I'm taking myself on a weekend get away so I won't feel guilt OR frustration!

[Jeff]

i think was was said last night on the show and what you are saying here is acceptance will help us all. My father has said some really crazy things and once i started accepting him as he is NOW so did my children. We have all shared better laughs, better conversations, more closeness.My kids are less afraid when they visit him.It looks like he has a lot of 'girlfriends' in the home. Being one of the few men, he is very popular - a different woman is always holding his hand. Last year my son said to him that it looked like he had a lot of 'friends with benefit's' and we all laughed. I wonder if my father understood what that means, but my other kids do and it made everyone feel a lot more comfortable and visits have been easier.

[Lisa]

My mother seems to have sex on her mind too. She told me her caretaker had 'taken a lover' and described to me in detail what she had walked in to and saw. I explained to her that it was her caretakers husband who often visited on Sunday nights and my mother knew him very well. She continued to describe the scene as if she was writing a romance novel, and very graphic details!My mother use to read a lot but NEVER romance novels and mostly read non-fiction. She has displayed a very active sexual imagination. So, like someone above said, maybe she is going back to better times. She is certainly talking like a teen, with raging hormones. It use to make me feel really uncomfortable, but now I'm having fun listening to the stories and I think I wish they could go on a bit longer!

[Carol]

yea, there's a lot of sex talk at my mother's care home too. At least I think there is! I really like playin BINGO, probably more than they do.

[sandy]

the hbo peice last night on care givers really shows
the need for humor/ as several of the people said
there's lots of memory humor out there/you can;t
cry about it all the time so you HAVE to laugh
about it!/then he said isn't that right Kurt and Kurt
said my name is Bob!/ laughs all around the table/Wonderful that the patients can
see the humor and talk about how it helps them survive/
Humor is a very powerful tool/it's survival humor when
we need it the most

[Stef Willen]

My grandmother had multi-infarct dementia, which is very similar to alzheimer's. If my mother and I couldn't find things funny, we were sunk. This really adventurous, whiskey-drinking, Thoreau-reading english teacher who had always marked up my writing with a red pen was now saying sentences like, "Ouchie, ouchie, ouchie, yi, yi, yi, yi, no, no, no." Driving her to get her hearing aids checked went something like this:

"Hey, gramma, look at Longs Peak today."
"Heey, heey, heeeey, oouuch, C-o-n-s-t-r-u-c-t-i-o-n W-o-r-k A-h-e-a-d."
"Yeah, that's right, should I push it to 80!?"
"Wooo, woo, ooooh, heey, heey, H-o-u-r-s O-f O-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n."

My grandmother has gotten up in the middle of the night and toilet papered her walker and tied toilet paper bows around her ankles. She's called from her comfy chair in her library to tell us she's been stranded and that she's at 3340 Lariat Way, which is where she's lived for 15 years. Of course, we are dealing with the mysterious brain here. Sometimes, just when I was about to classify gramma as "not lucid today," she'd do something like tell me Bill Clinton stopped by earlier and then explain perfectly what a split infinitive is.

The most important thing was to never let her be wrong and to learn to laugh, but to get her to laugh, too--at times by doing things that made us feel really ridiculous and childish, like: putting on funny hats and making funny faces. Putting my shoes on the wrong feet and pretending to enthusiastically walk out the front door was always a real side splitter. I feel fortunate to have made her laugh hours before her death. She was no longer speaking and was loaded with morphine. I put on all of her jewelry at once, and I tossed my hair and made faces like I thought I was beautiful with 12 pairs of earrings clipped to my ear. Her nose crinkled--a laugh, because she could no longer swallow.

[Deborah]

That is such a sweet story - actually brought tears to my eyes! Having a sense of fun w/ my mother keeps me going. I have dogs that come with me when I visit my mother. She's never liked dogs much but...I'm not going to leave them home. She use to get really irritated when I arrive with the dogs. Always wanting to know who's they were, why were they here, what were their names, all over and over again and never remembering. (Unfortunately my dogs LOVE my mother) One Christmas I sprayed the dogs with red and green hair color (washable, non-toxic!) I literally decorated them for the holiday and since they are white fluffy dogs, they were quite a sight. My mother loved them, thought it was the funniest thing she had ever seen. I didn't have to hear one question about the dogs. She had too much fun with their appearance, she forgot she didn't like dogs. Now I spray them the appropriate color of every holiday when we visit. And truthfully, if we're visiting and it's not a holiday I spray them a color and tell her it is a holiday. She doesn't know, she doesn't care and she has a lot of fun with the dogs that she use to be completely bothered by.

[charles]

my brother was one of the few i have heard about who didn't get upset when it was suggested he no longer drive. for most this is such an understandable loss of independence, but not for my brother. once he heard the doctor say we should consider letting him drive only during the daytime, only short distances, my brother heard he could no longer drive at all, which was probably for the best anyway. he LOVED not driving, even when he could still drive, he LOVED having me have to drive him around everywhere and suddenly he wanted to go places he had never driven to himself. we had gone full circle b/c when we were younger he was forced to take me everywhere. he felt like a prince being driven, we laughed how he finally got to be what he thought he was meant to be all his life. i really miss driving him around!

[Jay Amy]

My mom-in-law started to develop symptoms about 10 years ago, shortly before her husband died. We added on to the house (a bedroom suite with wider doorways, grab bars in the shower, etc.), and then had her come live with us.

The decline has been slow, but steady. Her worst moments are her most lucid -- when she realizes that she is, literally, losing her mind. At those times, I hug her and tell her that she is not alone. My wife and I know that the coming period, until the time arrives when we just can't take care of her at home any more, will be the worst. Ironically, because of mother/daughter issues, and because I am "the man", I am the one for whom she is most willing to cooperate when it comes to personal care. Thus, I end up providing the lion's share of that care when I'm at home. Life takes you some funny places, ...

But, light does pierce through the ever-gathering clouds. Her sense of humor is still there; she laughs at the jokes on TV ("I Love Lucy" is a favorite!), and at my silly antics performed for her amusement. She loves when I sing to her, or whistle a tune, and her smile of joy is radiant at those times. At those moments, her regression backwards from adulthood is almost liberating. The same type of interaction that brings pleasure to both parent and toddler is present. Her enjoyment of the moment is pure and undiluted with adult reserve. I, in turn, can joke and play with her without being self-conscious -- just as one is free to be silly with a small child.

I know this phase won't last. But I will try to enjoy it as much as I can, and try to bring her as much enjoyment as possible, until the darkness eventually wins.

[Julie]

Humor when caregiving is a requirement. Many people don't get it. The last couple of years of my step-grandfather-in-law's life, he thought that he was living in a full service bed and breakfast with a very nice couple. That nice couple was my father and mother-in law. It was hard to live for such a long time without him knowing who they were, but they were able to build a nice adult relationship that made their caretaking easier for him to handle.

My husband has cerebral palsy. He is ambulatory, however several years back he broke his 'good foot' and was relegated to a wheelchair while things healed up. This made things difficult because he was unable to toilet himself. So, the first night after the break we are both up in the middle of the night trying to get him to the toilet. He is twice my size, btw. I managed to leverage him up and was spinning him around to sit when he slipped, bounced off the wall and fell to the floor. My husband started to laugh, then I started to laugh. We sat there at 3 AM laughing until we cried. I don't remember how we got him on the toilet that night, but I do remember the feeling of that laugh. It was what we needed at the time and it was a good memory for the months to come.

-Julie

[Karen]

We call my mother Seven Second Susan, which might not be funny, but it helped my 10 year old son understand her a lot more. He's able to be with my mother now and that makes it easier for us all, including my mother who still enjoys our company.

[Nikki]

My mother has been gone for many years, but I still snicker over an incident involving her pantry. I stumbled into a rather disgusting mess in my mother's pantry. It seemed she had used the pantry for a bathroom. I took her into the pantry to show her the mess and she became highly insulted. She told me I could take that mess and stick it up my "what-cha-ma-call-it" and then dangle it off my "thing-a-ma-jig", and further more I could take my high and mighty stinky person and march myself back home to "do-ma-flotchy". With that she stomped off to the living room, sat down in her chair and refused to talk me for a good five minutes! I sure learned my lesson.
She might not have known the exact words, but she made up for it with her wonderful sense of humor. I miss her everyday!

[Deborah]

Thank you Nikki, we laughed out loud! Your mother sounds like she was a spirited woman with a great sense of humor. What a great gift to you as, I'm sure you were to her.

[Lori Davis]

Several months ago I took my to the doctor when she received her diagnosis of Alzheimer's. We 'knew' it but it was stunning news to be told. We left the doctor's office in silence and neither of us could talk for what seemed like hours - probably more like 30 minutes. Finally my mother broke the silence, "Boy if I have Alzheimers this could be really bad". My response was at the point it becomes bad for her, she won't know it and we the rest of us will be having the hard time. She was able to laugh and we laughed together which really broke the silence we had between us as we digested the diagnosis. My mother told my sister's the news by starting with the wacky thought she had expressed earlier and the good laugh that followed. This lead to more laughing w/ my sisters. We all agree that this difficult moment was helped greatly by the ability to laugh with each other

[Tara F]

All I remember was one story about a woman carrying a piece of fish form the market and then falling on a patch of ice on the ground. Later she said she was positive she was floored by a flying fish!

[Dana Colwell]

What a great blog! I was with my grandmother when she was first diagnosed with Alzheimers, we were obviously upset about the news. My grandmother drove herself to the library to do some research on the disease. A few months past and I went to visit her, she had a stack of mail from the library regarding her overdue library books. As she looked at the pile of mail in disgust and said "I don't know why the library keeps sending me these overdue notifications, I haven't been to the library in years!". Ironically all the titles of the books they are accusing her of checking out had the word Alzheimer in them.

[Deborah]

Thanks Dana! What a great story!I had a very good conversation w/ the LA office of Alz Association today and she offered several connections that will be very helpful. They have come along way from the letter they wrote me in disgust about our Alz cartoon published in the early 90's. She said they now get the importance of humor. I've hooked up w/ everyone from Oprah.com, May Clinic, AARP, and many others so the stories will start coming. Now we just need Star's stories! Thanks again, good work!

[Barbara]

My mother was married 4 times. Her second marriage was to my father and they had a 'honorable' divorce, staying friends for the children. Her 4th husband was her soul mate and for the last 15 years, since his death, she has been asking me where he went. The interesting thing is my mother does not remember at all her other two husbands. Those years are wiped out - gone! Generally I can keep talking about a person, subject,etc.and something will kick in, if only briefly. I can not get her to remember these 2 husbands, but she's funny about it when I question her. They were both name Dick - she said that of course she couldn't remember 2 dicks she married, why should she! I actually find it remarkable and lovely that she is living w/o regrets that would make so many of us sick! She has AZl but the lack of memory has kept her very healthy for now, so we're enjoying the time as we can, when we can.

[Deborah L. G - CARINGSPACE]

This is funny & Sad...

My friend told me that her Aunt & Uncle both had Alzheimer's disease & once each called the police, as they thought the other was an intruder.