The Silent UTI (My Mom’s Alzheimer’s)

Photo by Heather Barnes on Unsplash

“Come on Mom, eat just a few more bites, it’s your favorite.”

No amount of cajoling can get Mom to eat the full meal. Even her favorite chocolate dessert sits untouched and melting. I switch to “Plan B” and whip up a quick vanilla protein shake with some fresh veggies snuck in. This helps. Mom drinks a good six ounces. Considering her half-eaten dinner and the shake, we are doing okay for nutrition, but she continues to refuse water and other fluids.

Mom’s interest and/ or ability in walking is also decreasing. She is moving tentatively even with hands-on assistance. The trip from the dining table to the bathroom is a slow-motion affair.

Mom has been slowing down considerably all-round, but it is often followed by a “bounce back”. The bounce-backs are getting fewer and farther in between. Still, I don’t see it coming when Mom just stops.

One moment I am guiding her across the threshold from the living room to the bathroom, the next minute she is still as a statue, all her weight is on me, and I am struggling to stay upright. Fortunately, the walker, is within reach. I have kept it close, “just in case”. Well today is the “in case”.

I hold Mom with one hand and open the walker with the other, swinging it around and placing her hands on the handles just before we both start to crumble. I sigh when she grabs hold of the walker, but my relief is short-lived. I watch as my mother begins a slow-motion swoon unto the floor. I catch her, but her weight is too much for me to keep her upright, so we both slowly descend to the floor slowly like a melting chocolate sundae.

We sit on the floor together, Mom still holding onto a leg of the walker, me still holding unto her waist.

“What do we do now Mom?”

My question is not rhetorical. I have no idea how I’m going to get her up off the floor. She speaks up for the first time in several hours.

“I don’t know,” she says.

“Neither do I,” I confess, waiting for an idea of what our next move should be.

I eventually get my mom up, using the walker, standing behind her and guiding her into the bathroom.