Episode S4E1 (133): Daughters, Mothers, and Dementia

Losing a loved one to dementia is an all-encompassing grief - it affects you physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  Listen today as Hal’s wife Vicki interviews 2 of her closest friends, Dawn Pownell and Mary Yarbrough.  The 3 of them will share honest yet heart-warming stories (be prepared to laugh and maybe shed a tear or two).  They will offer encouraging suggestions and reminders of how God’s faithfulness carried them as they walked this difficult journey.

Transcript

Dr Hal Habecker: 0:00

Music. Welcome to the finishing well podcast where we encourage seasoned believers to find meaningful ways to impact their world for the kingdom of God, whether you're 65 and up or not quite there. Yet, our mission is to prepare and encourage every person to finish well. Our prayer is that this podcast will encourage and strengthen you to glorify Christ as we intentionally engage our aging fears.

Vicki Habecker: 0:38

Welcome to the finishing well podcast today is going to be a special treat, because I have two of my dearest friends here with me, Dawn panel, and Mary Yarborough, and we're going to delve into a difficult subject, but I hope and pray that God will use what you hear for the next little bit to encourage you. We're calling this daughters, mothers and dementia. You know, losing a loved one to dementia is what I would call an all encompassing grief, because it affects you, physically, emotionally, spiritually, you name it. And from everything that I've read and researched, we're in a I'm just calling it a tsunami. When it comes to dementia, there are not that many medical advances. The increase in cases is overwhelming, like a tsunami. It just comes and it builds and it builds. But for the purpose of this podcast, and to keep it simple, I'm just going to use the term dementia, not Alzheimer's, although I know one of our guests, her mother, that was a real diagnosis. Not going to call it cognitive decline or some of the other phrases. I'm just going to call it dementia. But before we get started, I want to tell you a few facts that I've pulled up in 2024 there are 7 million people in America with some form of dementia, and gals, here's the troubling thing, two thirds of those are women, and as our population lives longer, I think it's only a matter of time before not just us, but a lot of our listeners, are this disease is going to touch their their lives, personally. And they say, by 65 okay, those of you out there listening who are in that age range, one out of nine people in the United States will develop some type of dementia. And if you live long enough to be 85 the incidence increases to one in three gals. That could be one bucks. And by 95 one and two will have some form. So we're going to begin our stories, but I want to talk about because that's this is something I think that's going to weave its way into our stories about caregiving. And if you are involved as a caregiver for someone with uh who's struggling with dementia right now, we use a phrase you've got to be a missionary to yourselves at time, caregivers often sacrifice their own physical and mental and emotional health and caring for a loved one, and as you, as all of us, know, you can sometimes be part of the sandwiched generation. You're caring or aging parents, but you've also got adult kids or grandkids that you are pouring your life into. So my two friends here today have walked this walk some recently, some years ago, some of our stories are similar and some are worlds apart. So I'm going to ask each of you gals just to tell your story. Al used to say when he was preaching that people remember stories more than they remember a sermon title or particular scripture. So let's tell all of our listeners our stories and ask God to use those to reassure, to encourage. One of the things for me is to eliminate any guilt that I had, to ease pain, to recognize shattered dreams that will never take place and to encourage our adult kids and what to look out for in us, or just making sure they know our story and knowing that God and Mary, you've used this term, God always redeems painful times. So Mary, tell our guests, good morning,

Mary Yarbrough: 4:41

good morning.

Vicki Habecker: 4:43

I've known you for decades. We raised our kids in the same school, the same church, hell. Officiated your kids weddings. We bought Golden Retriever puppies together. Was it Duke? It was Duke and Cody. What a life some. Any memories. I knew your mom, but not intimately. So tell us about your beautiful mother on her journey. Okay,

Mary Yarbrough: 5:07

well, you know, dementia was just a part of who she was. So I kind of have to start at the beginning to kind of give you an idea of the bud God moment at the end the redemption story. So my mother was a businesswoman at heart. She took care of the books and all of the orders for our little grocery store that we we had in our tiny, little town that was less than 1000 people, but she got dressed up every day and walked across the alley from our house to the store that was just, you know, 100 yards away, as if she lived in the big city. And what mattered to her was appearance, achievement, performance, and she expected that of herself and of everyone that she cared about. What that left, what void that left was affection. There wasn't much affection in our home and or very little nurturing

Vicki Habecker: 6:22

interrupt you. How many siblings did you have? I

Mary Yarbrough: 6:24

had two. I have a brother and a sister, but both much older, 11 and 13 years older. So when they left home, they left me all by myself.

Vicki Habecker: 6:33

You were an only child. I

Mary Yarbrough: 6:35

was I was so for instance, when I was born, many years after she had her first two she handed me straight to the woman that she had hired to care for me, and said, Here's your baby. And you know what? I was her baby in every sense of the word. She was the most godly, wonderful, precious woman that and she loved me with a with a fierce love. She stayed with us until I was in high school, and I stayed close to her all of those days. So that kind of gives you a snapshot of who she was when I was growing up. However, we have to go back a little bit further in order to kind of understand I had to do this, so I'll take you on that journey with me. She whenever she was 1918, or 19, she was a freshman at UT, and some traumatic event took place, and she came home, and it was apparently very intense, and so she was sent to Galveston for treatment. So we're not sure what that event was. Our aunt is the one that told us about it, who actually took her on the bus to Galveston for this treatment, but she never asked questions. And so we don't know what that was, but we do know that it was. It affected not only her at the time, but I believe that this event affected her ability later on, the lacking of the tools she just couldn't I don't think she had those nurturing and mothering tools or affectionate tools. So as we are, my brother and sister grew up in that type of environment. There were times where she was very erratic in her thinking she was irrational at times, never abusive, physically, but emotionally, it really was. And sadly enough, we all thought it was kind of normal, until we left home and we discovered that it wasn't necessarily the norm. It's interesting. I said it's kind of funny, but it's not funny. One of those things I heard recently says, Do you if you wonder if you grew up in a dysfunctional home, here's four things to consider, don't feel, don't trust, don't talk and make everybody and everything look good. I was just astounded. I called my sister. I was like, What do you think? And she goes, Oh, my goodness, that is just that. Yeah, yeah, I believe we did grow up in that.

Vicki Habecker: 9:33

I've heard the expression, though, keep fun in

Mary Yarbrough: 9:40

dysfunction. So all of this behavior just kind of ramped up after our father died, and she lived, just to give you perspective, she lived another 10 years after he died. So we we realized that he. He compensated for her a lot. I think he shielded us from a lot of you know, we we just thought it was bad, but I think he shielded us from a lot of that she lived in the home that they had bought after they sold the store. And the first thing she decided she that she wanted to move to Houston, close to my brother. Well now He's the least nurturing of the three of us. I guess it was just an easy move for her because it wasn't very far. But what, I guess one of the one thing, the first thing that we we thought, oh, you know, something may be slipping here. She literally sold her house to her neighbor without a contract, without an appraisal or say it was a handwritten contract, and just never even considered anything. Didn't tell us she was doing it, and just said, I'm moving next week into my brother's condo. Yeah, very rash. With Yes. So she got to Houston, and we began to, you know, see a little bit more. Even my non nurturing brother was able to pick up on things. And we decided to have her tested at a neurological with a neurologist. Well, she just fooled everybody in the room. You know, that's then, see, I think that's one of the first things that they can cover it, because they know what they need to say. And so he just came away saying, oh, there's no problem here. So she'd get lost driving. And then the one thing that I think we that flipped the switch for us, and it was that she started taking her dog's medication and giving him hers. And so there were some medical issues there that we had to tend to. The good thing that happened during that time, and I'll always hold on to this, she started going to church there, and got involved in a Bible study. Now we grew up going to church, but it was always for appearance. And so whenever she started going to church there and going to this Bible study. She kind of worked through some of her grief over daddy, because I don't think she ever really verbalized to us how sad she was that he died. She wasn't able to express her emotions in that way. And so during that time, she told me, she says I could have never gotten through this without knowing Jesus. And I was blown away, because I'd never heard her speak that openly about a relationship with Him, and so I've I knew at that point that she she was a believer. She accepted Christ. So after this and several other events took place, my sister and I, who both live here in the Dallas area, just asked her if she would be willing to move into an assisted living my brother wanted to sell the condo, and so the perfect timing took place, and she was willing to come up here and live in an assisted living. Well, we the minute we talked to administrator, and she evaluated her, she took us aside, and she said she will outgrow this place within two years, if not less. And so we were,

Vicki Habecker: 13:41

you know, you so the administrator could see the progression. Oh, she was.

Mary Yarbrough: 13:46

She saw it far better than we did. You know, I think you just, you're, are you in denial? I don't know. And but the past behavior made it difficult for us to determine, is this just mother, or something more going on here. And so we we got there, and I'll tell a funny story. One of the things that she just left to do, she loved Walmart, and so we would take her for entertainment. We'd take her to Walmart, give her a basket, let her fill it up, and the hunt was more important than the purchase, so we'd let her just wander around, fill that basket up for an hour, and then we'd lose the basket and say, oh, let's go get some lunch, and she'd just be happy as a clam. So that was kind of our entertainment, and it made us laugh. And

Vicki Habecker: 14:38

Walmart is an entertainment capital. It is,

Mary Yarbrough: 14:44

Well, I'll tell one other. So we were, it was on Christmas Eve. I was, I had this Hallmark. This was before Hallmark, really Hallmark movies. But I had this, this ideal thought in my mind that we would all. It together on Christmas Eve, we'd go to the Christmas Eve service with our candle candles and and just have this wonderful meal afterwards. And so my sister was going to pick her up and bring her, and we had reserved this whole row, and Hal kind of started the the the service, and in walks my mother and my sister kind of late, but you know, it's the best my sister could do. Mother had on Bermuda. Mind you, it was 40 degrees. She had Bermuda shorts on with a Hawaiian shirt, a fishing cap and her knee high hose. You remember those knee highs? Oh yeah, with her with her tennis shoes. And I looked at my sister of just, you know, I got nothing here. I tried, I tried. She wouldn't even put a coat on. And so then So Bruce Thomas, dear Bruce Thomas, I didn't even know he could sing, but that boy could sing, and he started singing a solo, Oh, holy night. She picked up her candle, put it to her mouth as if it were a microphone, and started just belting out, along with with Bruce and my kids were like, falling to the ground, hiding under those chairs. They were just like, Mom, do something. Well, my sister and I were laughing so hard, it was just like, And so David goes, take the candle away. She thinks it's a microphone. So we took the candle away, and she's she finally I said, Mother, it's a solo. And so, oh, okay, so that, but we'll always laugh about that. You just have to, as you said, we've you've got to find humor along the way.

Vicki Habecker: 16:46

Otherwise, it is a deep, dark hole.

Mary Yarbrough: 16:49

It is. It is. So as her dementia worsened, this administrator was correct. She it was probably 18 months, year and a half or so that we knew that she needed to be in memory care. So we moved her at that point to a facility that, you know, a lockdown facility, and and you know what? They were really, really good. They knew they knew how to handle this kind of thing. And so the one of the first things they asked us was, what did she do before, you know, what did she do as a young woman? And so I referred back to, you know, she sat at a desk. She was a businesswoman. She answered the phone, she had her ledgers, she did all this. They gathered all of that stuff, an old timey phone, and they had a little place at their desk, and she sat there with her makeup on every day now, lipstick on her eyebrows. But you know that, you know they didn't care. They said, Oh, you're you're here for work. Come on down. And here's your little station. And she'd answer that little phone all day long and writing her ledgers. And it just it brought her comfort. But as you know,

Vicki Habecker: 18:03

go ahead, was she still ambulating? Could she still feed herself? Yes? So she was yes, yes, quote, functioning, yes, yes in terms of physical things, yes,

Mary Yarbrough: 18:14

she was. And so during that time, though, there was a tremendous amount of anger. At times there she would, funny thing is, she could only remember my sister's number, thank the Lord, but she would call her and say, You're killing me, and she would just be very, very angry and just spew hurtful words at her. And so as we talked, I said, Why don't we? Let's double team her. Whenever she calls you, you say, I'm going to get Mary on the phone. And so we talked to her. And so the administrator before had told us, she said, whenever you talk to her, always put a period at the end of your sentences. Don't ever leave a question for her to dispute what you're saying. And so, and she helped us, she said, you know, if she gets angry like that on the phone with you, just speak very kindly to her. Don't just hang up the phone in anger. You don't want to repeat what she's doing, but say, Mother, if you can't speak kindly to us, we're going to have to hang up now. And if she continued, we would say you can call us back when you have some nice words to say, period. And if she continued, we would say we're going to hang up the phone now, goodbye. And so it was very controlled. It was but it gave us, I'm not saying it gave us control, but it gave it was just so hurtful. And so it put it in perspective for us to realize that this, we weren't killing her, we weren't doing the. Things that she was saying and that we did have the ability to respond well and respond well to her, but still have somewhat

Vicki Habecker: 20:12

control of a missionary to yourself. Well, it's interesting, interesting taking care of yourself and your own emotions. Yeah,

Mary Yarbrough: 20:25

during that time. Well, actually, prior to moving to that facility, she would and this is where I think my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's eventually, and actually, that's what was on her death certificate was the cause of death, which actually that gives them more funding. If that becomes, you know, a thing, then there's going to be more more funding and more research done. But during that time, she would, and this was not like her, she would put ugly notes on the outside of her door to the staff. She would accuse them of stealing. She called my sister one day, accused them of stealing her couch, and her couch was just right there. Oh, well, they must have brought it back. She'd try to use the remote as her telephone. Her, you know, her TV remote, and just get furious that her phone wasn't working and would just be, you know, she'd just spew her little angry words all over the place. So that was prior to then, once we got to the memory care facility, some of that settled down. But as you well know, sundowners can hit and sundowners, for those who don't know that, what that is, around four or five o'clock, they begin to just she spun out of control. More anger. She was almost violent with some of the staff that have to call someone in they'd call us and we'd have to go and try to settle her down. Well, that led us though to a geriatric psychiatrist, and he was he evaluated her, and then he took my sister and I aside and asked us questions, and

Vicki Habecker: 22:26

we revisited. Let me ask you this, did she know she was going somewhere to be evaluated?

Mary Yarbrough: 22:32

No, no, okay, never knew that. We're just taking you to the doctor, and he's gonna, he's gonna visit with you for a while, you know? And so he revisited, helped us circle back to this trauma that took place, and when was it, and what, what facility was she in, and the the place burned after she was there, so there's no records, so we couldn't even pull them up, but he determined he knew exactly who the doctor was in charge the year that she was there. And he said, I like, like, there's absolutely no doubt my mind, she had shock treatment. And on top of that, he says, on top of this Alzheimer's diagnosis, I suspect she's bipolar and has never been treated for this. So you know, coming to that realization at that point your life, it's kind of like it was, it was a little bit of a relief for us, because at times, growing up, we thought this behavior was somehow our fault. Were we making her do this? And so this, I hope you understand that the reason I'm saying all of this because I think this journey as she went into dementia or Alzheimer's, it was almost a gift for us, because it explained things that we we couldn't understand before.

Vicki Habecker: 24:03

Now, when you say we I'm sorry I keep interrupting. No, were you and your sister and your brother all on the same page with all this? Yes, we were.

Mary Yarbrough: 24:11

Our brother was just so worn out after she left. He was just so thankful that we were and my sister and I have always just gotten along so well. And just, we were collaborated, and we're just always on top of it. So we took a shift. We would go every other day. One of us would go see her every day, but we would go, you know, alternately. And just, she would say, Oh, you just missed daddy. And he was, he'd been gone for eight years. And so at first we were going, mother, you know that he's, you know, he died. And we realized that, you know, you don't need that work well, because she grieved every time we said that. And so we decided, oh, you know that we just play along with it. And I said, Oh, I'm it's such a beautiful day. I bet he's out there playing golf with his buddy. She said, Oh yeah, he was, he was on the golf cart and just came right by. And I said, Well, that's great, you know. So you learn ways of of not pushing against what's happening, but you kind of join them in their suffering. I don't know if that makes sense, but as we he going back to the psychiatrist. He said, The Sundowners for her, and he just evaluated her as a whole. He said, What I think is happening, because she was on some of the meds she was on were the longer, extended release. He said, we're going to take those away, because she's metabolizing these too fast, and so I'm going to put her on shorter periods and more frequent and she settled down. And I just, you know, that was so much a relief for us, and surely a relief for the staff. And you know, who knew that that would would help? So it's kind of how that that took place, the last two years. And here's where the redemption comes in the but God moment. The last two years, she began speaking in Becky and what you are familiar with word salad, and she began to just talk, but none of it made sense. And at that moment, I looked at my sister, and I said, You know what? She doesn't have the ability to hurt us anymore. And so as as for two years, she almost became our little, our little toddler, and she was sweet because she didn't, she didn't have that. I think the Lord just removed that. So those two years were really a gift. And about the same time, I was doing the Bible study, Beth Moore study, breaking free. You remember how powerful that was? And there was one exercise in there that do you? I think the question was, Do you have a difficult relationship with someone? And, of course, I was in the throes of it, and so she took you through. Go back as far as you can remember about that person's, growing up years. Go back in her history as much as you possibly can. And as I did that, my aunt was still alive, and I asked her some questions about where, you know, where they lived, and their living conditions were very conducive to, some type of abuse. Their father was an alcoholic that never worked. And my my grandmother had a boarding house where salesmen would come in, and they lived there, and sometime they had to give up their room. And my aunt recalls some situations that weren't weren't good. And so as I began to see, possibly, what could have happened, even prior to the what, here's the hair quote, the the events, the nervous breakdown, is what. I don't know if that's what they call it anymore, but that's what they called it. Then there could have had been things that happened when she was even younger. And so as I did that, I began to realize that I always knew she didn't have the tools to love, but it became much more of a reasoning with the Lord, and as I took it before him, he

Unknown: 29:02

he, he affirmed

Mary Yarbrough: 29:05

that she didn't have the tools, but he assured me that I did. He said, You know, you've learned how to love well, and it's not up to you to it's not up to you to wait for her to ask for forgiveness. I want you to forgive her, because I have loved you well. And so I began to just during that time, just to love her as best as I could with the love that she couldn't have for me. And so toward the end, we had her on hospice for just a few days. I think, goodness, sometimes you don't even realize it's so imminent, you're hesitant to get on it. But we had her with the comfort, meds and everything, and her last. Hours were very painful, and they were labored, physically, physically, she was out of it, you know, in and out, but there were physical signs that she was still in pain, and we just couldn't give her enough. So I remember just whispering into in her ear that it was okay to run to Jesus, and I told her I loved her. I told her that I was thankful she was my mother. And really sincerely meant it. I'd gotten to that place of forgiveness, and only God could do that, and I was with her alone when she when she passed, and but I remember just in those labored moments, you're counting the minutes in or the seconds in between the breathing, and you're just waiting. And I'll never forget the tortured look on her face, and then when she took her last breath, I didn't have to wonder if she was in the arms of Jesus. Her face relaxed and she it almost looked like she had a little smile on her face. And I knew then she was free, and she was in his arms. So Alzheimer Alzheimer's was a gift for me, because I don't think I could have ever gotten to this place without walking through that journey with her.

Vicki Habecker: 31:35

Okay, we're passing out tissues here in the room.

Unknown: 31:39

Yes, we are, oh

Vicki Habecker: 31:41

man, okay, Mary, we're gonna come back and ask you some questions in a minute. Okay, but we're gonna hear from dawn, and I'm gonna tell you about my sweet friend, Dawn. We've reared our kids in church together. You actually taught my son first grade for our listeners, Dawn retired after that year, she said it's because she was pregnant, but it's because my son brought his imaginary monkey to first grade every day. Now, most kids have an imaginary friend. My son, Jonathan had an imaginary monkey, and Don said that he the monkey would talk during class. And one day she had had a dove. And do you remember what you called him? Wild Man, wild man, wild man. Would you and your monkey go in the hall, have your last conversation, leave him out there and come again? And he did,

Dawn Pounell: 32:34

and he did for many days after two I love that boy.

Vicki Habecker: 32:39

Anyway, Hal officiated at your kids weddings. I know your mom well, and I didn't know your mom very well. I've met her a few times, Mary, but I know your mom well. I loved her enthusiasm for all of life. So tell us about your mother and your her journey was a short journey compared to this, because she ended up with an ugly medical diagnosis as well as her mental decline. She did. Tell us about she

Unknown: 33:12

did, and I you know, it's such a God orchestration, because our stories are all so very different. My mother was a best friend. She was had a huge heart. She loved fiercely, she was loyal, she was thoughtful, she was a servant, and her number one priority was her children and family to a fault, right? So there's you can cross over to where that's not healthy, but she she was independent. She had a very strong independent streak, and she was stubborn. And you'll see the stubbornness come out in this story as her mental acuity and her dementia progressed, and then her physical decline.

Mary Yarbrough: 34:04

Now, let me ask you this, yes, when

Vicki Habecker: 34:06

your mom and dad divorced, was this while she you were starting to notice some things, or had they divorced year before? No

Unknown: 34:13

years before? My parents divorced my sophomore year of college, and it was shocking. We were a family of four. My brother is two years younger than I am, and we were a very close family of four. And, you know, very stereotypic. My dad coached the sports teams. My mom was the head of the scouts. Was the, you know, they, they were intricately involved in our activities. And so I they divorced that soft my sophomore year, my brother was still a senior. I think the reality that they poured everything into us and not into their marriage became evident as the house was becoming empty. So my mom kind of reinvented herself. She had gone to the University of Colorado, where she met my father, and had quit her last semester of her four years of college when she was pregnant with me, right after they got married and never finished. So she went back and got a real estate license, and then she and her best friend opened a little gift shop in the middle of Houston called hearts delight, where she poured herself into, I mean, she could never sit, she could not idle. And so she it was, it filled her cup. Everyone who walked into that store to shop became of a lifelong friend. I mean, she just, she never met a stranger, and she was those were happy, thriving years. And then as our we started having our children, and she, she would come to Dallas, and we would go there every, every couple of weeks we saw we were in contact. My husband's parents were there as well. My dad was outside of Austin, and so we traveled to see family, so that our kids would know their grandkids, you know their grandparents. So this was years later, my mom had the shop became too much after about 30 years, and so she closed that shop in her 70s, against her will, really, because there was no choice. It just physically and financially. She needed to do that. But she never recovered from it. She lost her sense of purpose with it, which really was, I think, when we started to see the mental acuity decline and she started making some decisions that were not good. She started doing things like, she made a very bad financial decision about her condo, that she owned her townhouse, and she did a, you know, one of these quick loan things that and, and it was not good. It was not good. She started doing things like and again, she had a big heart. She loved people, but we found out that she was doing things like picking up the homeless people in the corners and driving them across the city to areas that she didn't know in her 15 year old car her as a single woman and dropping them off or taking them food. And then when we found out about that, and we said, You can't do that, that Mom, that's just you can't do those things. So then she started picking them up and driving them to a hotel and getting them a hotel room. These are men and women, and she just had a big heart, and it just broke her heart that was freezing cold weather, and they were hungry and the weather was bad, and she didn't have the money to do this, so we saw a lot of signs around finances that related to her house and then to the store, and then to this kind of behavior. And so we started dialoguing about five or six years before her death, about coming moving to Dallas. The problem was because she had born and raised in Houston, she had an immense support system. She loved her church, passionately served there, faithfully. She loved. She had friends from high school that she gathered with weekly. I mean, it just it was home to her in every sense of the word. And so as this decline went on, she started in these years, for the first time with some behavior changes that became alarming. She'd always been so thoughtful and considerate of us, and she became demanding, and she became just not reasonable. She lost the ability to reason in this dementia phase blooming, and she did things like she would call and say, Well, I'm coming for the weekend. I remember you said she would just show up, yes, for her weekend that lasted seven or eight days. And she'd say, I'm coming. I we've laughed about, you know, you talk about the laughter, you have to find something to laugh at. And she'd say to us, I only need a bed. Well, she didn't only need a bed. She wanted dinner out, and she wanted to go to church, and she wanted to go see the grandkids. And she wanted, I mean, she wanted to go, go, go, go, go. And I was working full time, and I sandwich generation. I had children, I had grandchildren, and I didn't have eight days to wine and dine and shop and do all that she wanted to do, and so I started pushing back. When she'd call and say, I'm coming tomorrow, I would say, it's just not a good time. I'm so sorry. And she got really angry at that, and she'd never really been an angry person. Mom, she would always before have said, Oh, that's fine. We'll find another time. You know there was, but we'd lost that reasoning, right? So as

Vicki Habecker: 40:11

now, let me interrupt you a second. Mary had a brother, and his sister and her sister helped you a lot. You made a comment that you had a brother, and his way of dealing with this was, I'm not dealing with this right, right? So it was pretty much a lot of the decisions were on your shoulders, right, with input from your husband. Yes,

Unknown: 40:30

okay, yeah. And my sister in law was a tremendous help to me, and she helped because I cleaned out my mom's house by myself, got it on the market by myself. This is all by taking care of her here. So Anne, really. Anne really filled some gaps for me, and was a really tremendous blessing. So fast forward about 7978 79 post covid shots. My mom developed some muscular responses that were muscle spasms all over her body, like she would be sitting in a chair, and you could physically see the muscles in her arm pulsating, and it was across her chest, across her abdomen, down her legs. It kept her from sleeping well, so we started seeing a neurologist. And I remember the first neurologist appointment and sitting in there with her, and he he was French, and he was he started asking her all these cognitive questions. And I'm clicking through in my head thinking the teacher in me knows she just failed that test, like brutally failed the test. And so he goes on, and she's asking questions about these muscle spasms and whatnot, and he's sending her for little tests here and there. And then afterwards, I stepped out with him, and I said, Are you not concerned about her memory issues? And he said, you should see what I see walk in this office, and I said, Well, I don't I'm not really concerned about those people. My mother's mental acuity is declining by the day. Are you concerned at all? Oh, we'll just watch it. Well, I let her continue to go to him because she thought he was nice, and I guess because he didn't do anything to make her change your lifestyle. So then I had another appointment with him, with her. My aunt was going occasionally with her too, and I just said, we have to find it. We have to find someone else. We're not getting better. The muscle spasms are getting worse, the mental the repetitive questions, right? Those signs that you see asking the same question over and over in a short period of time, where and what I learned was so much like you, Mary, I wanted to say, Mom, we just talked about that about 30 minutes ago. Remember, we're going to such and such and oh yeah, oh yeah. And then the same question would come up. And so I had to teach myself that was really not helpful. And I'm sure with your mother too, Vicki. So finally, we go to another neurologist, I think a big lesson. And then this is if you're not in a place initially that is working for you. Try another doctor. There are a million out there. You don't have to live in this so we went to another neurologist, and she was fabulous, and she ran a myriad of tests and she gathered information. And after about six or eight months with her, she said, I have someone you need to go see. And so she sent my mother to another neurologist, and we didn't know anything about him, and my mom refused to let me come in to go to the appointment. And Auntie was out of town. And so she went by herself. Which number one, right? Isn't that a big concern? So a friend. She had a friend. She had a million friends, but a really dear friend that went with her, that I called and said, Is there any way you can go? I need a I need a set of ears. Well, this happened to be an ALS professional neurologist that was a specialty, and we had no idea. We had no idea. And so he ran those tests. And so in October, it'll be two years this October, in October, after a year and a half of neurologist visits, declining dementia, she was diagnosed with ALS. So now you see my mother's problem we have that she's still driving her car to Dallas every four to six weeks. And so she gets in her car, and she drives to Dallas. So she wasn't in Dallas yet. Oh, no, she's still in Houston, refusing to move to Dallas, yes, so she's still in Houston. And so she drives to Dallas for her birthday in October, and we have a family meeting, and my brother and sister in law and Pat and I sat down and said. But mom, it's time to move to Dallas. We need to get you closer. We need to be able to help you with doctor's appointments. And she had gotten her diagnosis just a week or two prior to this, and she said, I'm doing fine, Mom, you're not doing fine. You're not doing fine. It's it's time to move. You here. I'm not, I'm not moving. And and every one of the four of us went around the table and basically said, game over. You have to move. We know you're independent. You don't want to move. This is going to be the hardest thing you've ever done, but it's time to move. And she that stubborn streak. You could just see her sitting up taller and straighter and digging in. And the last thing she said when we finished this conversation was, I'll think about it. So I started. I had already that trip. I had lined up three different retirement center places that had multi level care, that went from independent to memory care, and I took her to the first one, and she saw it, and she said, I really like it. That's nice. Cancel those other appointments. This isn't gonna happen for a long time, so I can't. She refused to go the other appointments. So after this conversation, I said, Okay, look, I've already paid the money for this place you saw. And let's, let's negotiate this and get this to a place where, because she could still do this at this point, how about you move here for a month. I won't I won't touch your townhouse. I won't sell it, I won't empty it. It can just sit there and let's get you settled and see if you don't love being around your children and grandchildren and in laws. And I think you'll come back to life being around people. I think you'll love it. Will you try it. Well, begrudgingly, she agreed. So the best thing I did for her was the day before she moved my mom had this, I'm gonna back up. She had this little card ministry. She sent everybody cards, people she just met. I'm sure you girls may have received cards from her. She just, it was just part of her way of saying, I'm thinking about you. I'm praying for you and y'all. I cannot tell you the amount of money and time she spent on cards. So we did, I did a moving party, and I bet there were 60 or 7070, and 80 year old people in that room that my mother had grown up with and lived life with in Houston, that all came and and my sister and I had this glorious idea. We had addressed cards to my mom's new address, and we asked everyone to pick up a couple of cards on their way out. And so my mom, from the millions she moved in, had cards in her mailbox every day from her lifelong friends. It was really it was just a gift. It was a gift to her. I'm so thankful Anne had come with that great idea. So we moved her, we gathered, but I want you to, I want you to have a word picture of what packing her up was like. So Ann and I went down, and we had brainstormed what we were going to take furniture wise. We'd laid out this lovely little apartment she was going into, and so we had tagged the furniture and the pictures. And so we'd go in and say my mom was in her bed with her sheets pulled up to her neck, and we'd say, Mom, do you want this dresser or This dresser to go. I don't care you pick I mean that she had no no input in it. We packed her clothes, we packed her shoes, we packed her gear.

Vicki Habecker: 48:50

Was she did she not realize what was happening? Or was she just having the poor pitiful me both?

Unknown: 48:55

Okay? I think she couldn't cope mentally with making any decisions. I think it was so overwhelming. The thought of leaving all that she'd ever known was overwhelming. So aunt, the my husband and Kevin came and picked up the gear. They drove it to Houston, Ann and I got there, we unpacked it, and then we moved her in. Annie D had taken her to Waco, so she walked in. It was completely set up. And that's another little tip that I think makes a difference. It felt like home. Her things were all around. Her pictures were hung. It was lovely. So the other thing that I did that had come out of just talking to other people, like you, girls who have walked through this road. My mom was there an hour, and I had an attorney there who drew up her power of attorney for me to have a medical power of attorney and a new will. And then an hour later, I had an appointment with someone from hospice, because with her als diagnosis, she did qualify for some help. So. So once we got those things in place, I did take a little bit of a deep breath. She did come to life being around the people in the retirement center she was in. She began very quickly after moving in, she was losing the ability to use her left hand about about the time she moved in, and then she was losing more of her right hand in her legs. So she was sliding out of bed, which I had her in a hospital bed, which she surprisingly agreed to moving in. And so she it was as low as it could go, but she didn't have the strength to put her feet down and plant them, nor to push off the bed. So it was a constant kind of difficulty. She'd end up on the floor. She couldn't pull the pull cord. So she was doing things that her mental status demonstrated was going to get us out, kicked out of this lovely place she could scoot through her bedroom, through the living room, to the door to go outside. These are in her pajamas, sometimes just part of her pajamas, and she could flip the door handle down, scoot out in the hall and scream, Help. Help. Help me. And these other retirees would come out and have to call for someone in the facility to come and pick her up. It was becoming a problem, and so I got a call from the facility that said, you do know. And I said, I do know, and we're going to have to start talking about moving into assisted living. Now, when my mom started in this place, I had hospice come every morning, and they showered her and dressed her and got her out of bed. And then at night, I had private hair care come in to undress her and get her in pajamas and get her in bed. And then I came in between, before or after that to see her every day. I tried to come every day. And came, I think a day or two a week. I think she came for sure, a day a week and took brought her grandson, but we just needed eyes on her some days. I went twice a day. But one thing I learned early on in teaching is that how you start with people is how they will expect you to continue to con to to perform. So I went to see my mom every day. I might stay for 15 minutes, I might stay for 30 I might stay for an hour, but I never went those first weeks and sat for three or four hours in her new apartment because I did not want her to think that's what life was going to be like here. And so we got into a really nice rhythm with that. And so as she continued to progress, one thing as as she was slipping out of bed and doing these events in the hall, and I said, I did sit down with her. I said, Mom, I think we're going to have to move into assisted living. I really think we need more care. And she looked at me and she said, I'm not moving. Now. I'd heard that right from Houston to Dallas, and I said, Mom, you don't own this place. When they say you have to move, we're going to have to move. And we're really close to that. Well, I'm not going to have any part of that. I pray every day for God to take me home. Every day I know where I'm going. I ask him every day just to close my eyes and take me to be with him in eternity. And she loved the Lord

Vicki Habecker: 53:33

dawn when I would go visit her. I heard the same story about Ella grace, one of your grandkids, the same story every time, but then every time, she was like, I need God to take me home. I need him to take me home. I need him to take me home every

Unknown: 53:50

day, every day, is what she said. So at the end, you know, there is guilt that you're not there all the time there is regret. I felt like I had done everything humanly possible to honor my mother. That was my month. My mantra every day was, Lord, help me to honor my mother in a way that is pleasing and honoring to you. Help me to have healthy boundaries so that I can be in relationship and take care of the other things in my life, like my husband and children and grandchildren, and I want to live with no regrets. I know you'll give me every day the manna I need to do what I have to do today. And we all know some days are really difficult, right? So at the very end, at the very end, I got a phone call on April 9 from her morning caregiver. It was the Saturday before Easter, and my mother's holiday, of all holidays was Easter. She loved Easter, all things Easter, and she was coming to spend the whole day with my family at my house, to do all things Easter with my grandchildren and her great grands that she loved and adored. So I. The precious woman that called said, I'm gonna have to call 911, I can't wake your mother up. And I knew it was probably one of these episodes. Didn't know what was going. I said, just, just hold, hold. I'll be there in five minutes. So I get there and my mom is completely, seemingly asleep. I'm shaking her. I'm yelling in her ear. I There is no response whatsoever to anything that I'm saying to her. And so I looked at this woman, and I said, you know, I have a I have a medical directive that says we can do nothing here. We can't give her oxygen. We can't do anything. But if I don't call 911 you lose your job. She said, Yes, I do. So I called 911 and when the wonderful gentleman walked in the door, I handed him I had these medical directives in my car, in her apartment, in my home. And I said, here it is, and I'm afraid you can do nothing but take her to the hospital. And I asked him to take her to a particular hospital. And I said, no oxygen, no intubation, no nothing, here's the directive. And he said, Okay, So Pat,

Vicki Habecker: 56:16

can I back up? Yes, when you were when you were making these advanced directives, was that a conversation that you and your brother and your sister, all everybody had with her? Did she have any input into what her end of life, other than I just want God to take me home? Did she have any input into that? Absolutely,

Unknown: 56:37

I said to her, when I lined up the attorney, and I told her that we were doing it, and I said to her, this is your chance to say exactly what you want to happen, and everything you say I'm going to write into this Medical Directive. So I sat with her for hours, and I said, Do you want to be intubated? No, I know where I'm going. Do you want to have your chest pounded on? Absolutely not. I don't want to extend a day of this earthly life. I'll be dancing on streets of gold. So we went through everything. So everything was written down

Vicki Habecker: 57:11

that is so important. It's so in this horse that is so important, and

Unknown: 57:15

it's hard conversations, but you have to have them. You have to have them. And so for them to be able to have the dignity and and it did save her from being hooked up forever. I mean, this did. This did save her life in the end, to give her her heart's desire so Pat. And my brother and sister in law went to the hospital. They had a Medical Directive with them that they handed to the emergency room doctor. And you know, it's hard, because medical people are trained to save lives. They are not. It is not in their wheelhouse to let people die. And So Pat, my husband is a physician, and he said to this very nice gentleman, just please do a head CT scan, and we'll go from there. And so he we could tell the emergency room doctor was not he was not in agreement with what we were saying or asking. He wanted to dive in and do his thing, and he came back from that scan with a completely different attitude, and he said, your mother has had a life altering event, and she is not going home today. She had had a massive brain bleed, nothing, and everybody in that hospital had checked her out. There was nothing on her head that typically happens when you've had a fall or an injury or something. There was nothing on my mother's head, I believe to this day, that was God's answer prayer to her. He just took her home. So we wanted our children and our we wanted our kids to be able to get there both sides of the family, and my aunt was an hour away in Waco hour and a half, and so we put in a tiny little clip that kept her throat open for that hour and a half till we could get everybody there. And then they moved us to a room, and we were in a room by ourselves, with everybody in the family there in her midst. What a blessing, while God ushered her home, and it is brutal to watch. It is brutal. I mean, she probably only lived less than an hour once that clip was out, and the you know, the breathing is labored and it's sporadic and it's hard, but Oh, what a way, what a gift to be there holding her hand while she stepped across the boundary. And it was it was a gift. It was a gift. So I miss her every day. I miss pick up, still, pick up my phone to call her. There is a sense of relief. I. That she didn't have to go all the way to the end of the ALS battle, which was her greatest nightmare. Um, but it was the dementia is a real thing, and it affects the whole family, as you all know, sister, yeah, her turn.

Vicki Habecker: 1:00:25

My journey was 18 years of watching my mother and both of you held my hand through a lot of it, and visited my dad, tried to care for my mother, but in his health failed, and God took him home. So I had to double whammy for a while, taking care of both of them. And as an only child, talking about going to visiting, my parents were in the same town, I tried to at least call them every day, or visit once or twice a week, and all the time balancing being a preacher's wife having adult kids who were trying to be adults, you know, that's always fun, and grandkids, having no siblings was a blessing a little bit, because I didn't have to get a consensus to make the hard decisions. But also didn't have any help. And there were some days that I was just desperate for help, my sweet grandmother. Y'all never knew my grandmother. She was a preacher's kid. I think she had a seventh or eighth grade education. There's a farm lady. She used to say, we may have to delete this from the podcast, but she was talking about people who aren't helpful, and she said they're as useless as tits on a bull. Oh, so I'm glad I didn't have one of those people that was hindering everything. But I was exhausted. I remember the day that I got it that I realized what was going on. I used to call mother and daddy every day, and I noticed my mother had quit answering the phone, and Daddy would answer and so we'd just do our chit chat, how's everything? And his phrase was, oh, it's the same old, same old. And I said, Well, what's mother cooking for dinner tonight? And there was this pause, and he said, Vicki, your mother hasn't cooked dinner in a year and a half. And you remember the movie with who was it? Tom Hanks Apollo 13, and the classic line in there, Houston, we have a problem, right? Well, I thought, Oh, we've got a problem. Garland doesn't have a problem. I put it on me. I said I have a problem because I wasn't aware. And I think that's something that we have to ask God to guard our guilt, right? Because I didn't realize it that it had gotten as bad as it was. I moved them into a facility for a while. My father passed away while they were there, and then we moved mother into one of these residential homes, five bedrooms, five patients or five residents, and these godly Christian women, all from Kenya, who loved on my mother, who sang, sang her into eternity. Pretty, pretty much, putting my mother in hospice was hard, because you think, have I given up? Have I you start questioning every decision you have to make now, how was my rock? I didn't have any siblings to help, and my dad was already gone. And unlike, and this is where I might get emotional, unlike both you who were there when your mother took her last breath, I wasn't. And I always thought it would be this Hallmark movie. You know, Hal would be reading scripture. I would be singing the hymns, my kids would be praying, and it would be this joyous. Well, it didn't happen that way. It was a cold, icy day, and Alan just finished his last message. That was his retirement message from the church. Jennifer was in town with a new baby. We were sitting in the den with a fire going in the fireplace, and I remember saying, I ought to go check on memo, but I don't want to. I said it was that going to see her was the land of the dying, and sitting there with a new grandbaby was the land of the living. And by this time, gals, I was so spent physically and emotionally, so I just didn't go, and about 30 minutes later, we got the call. Now, did my mother know I wasn't there? No, I knew it, but she didn't. She was on her heavenly journey, and I will say this, although I didn't. See her the day she died the day before, and she was pretty out of it, but as I would sing the old hymns to her, her eyes would open and she would try to try to sing with me. She saw where she was going, but wasn't there. So that's some of the guilt that I had. I tell y'all a funny story. This was, oh, about a year before. My mother loved the you know, her grandfather had been a pastor. She loved church, she loved Jesus and she loved music. She had fallen at the facility where she was and had broken her hip. Now, my dad had fallen about three days before, and was in a different facility, and I thought I got to get him. He this is bad, because they said if we don't do surgery, she's going to die. If we do surgery, she may die. So I felt like I needed to go get my dad. So I called, as you all know, our good friend, Patty McManus, who has beautiful voice, she's a neighbor, she's a church friend. And I said, Patty, would you go to the hospital and just sit with my mom, hold her hand and sing and I'm gonna go get Daddy. So Patty did that. About It. Six months later, Patty called me. She said, I've got to tell you what happened. I think y'all have heard this story. Patty's singing. She's holding my mother's hand. Now, my mother a godly woman. I never heard her say an ugly word in her life. And also, at this stage, my mother had not talked about word salad. It was we didn't even have word salad. This was just

Unknown: 1:06:44

non intelligible

Vicki Habecker: 1:06:46

jargon, and she hadn't even done that. And Patty said on about the third song, my mother rolled over on her side and looked at Patty and said, Would you shut the hell up?

Unknown: 1:07:02

I Patty's got a great

Vicki Habecker: 1:07:05

voice, but we have laughed about that so much, and I think it's so important to be able to go back. Now today, the three of us are sitting here, and we're going back to some of the good, bad, the ugly. But as you do that, if you for our listeners, if you've already lost a loved one to dementia, go back to some of the good times. Go back to some of those great memories. Questions, how do we tell our adult kids to to watch out for us if we're starting. Have y'all had those conversations with your adult kids? Well,

Mary Yarbrough: 1:07:49

for crying out loud, no, we don't have to say that. They say it to us.

Unknown: 1:07:55

You know what? I had this wonderful experience with my sister in laws parents were like our Dallas family. And I remember sit, I remember the minute it happened. And I just told my kids this story recently, and they had just said to Jim Bolton, my sister in law's father, who was a godly, amazing man, and his wife had dementia, and the their children, Anne and her siblings, had just said to Jim, it's time for you to move. We've got to get you into a place and the heart the hard conversation. And he looked at them, and he said, you know, you people care the most about me than anybody I know. And if you tell me It's time, I'm going to say okay. I might not agree. I might be disappointed, but I'm going to say okay, because you have my best interest at heart. And I said to my kids recently, I want you to know, I know you may have to say some hard things to us, but I want you to also hear my heart in this. I hope my answer is what Jim Bolton taught me. Okay, you love me the most, and you have my best interest at heart, even if I am, if I'm acting crazy about it, I want you to know now that my heart is thank you for caring that much about us. So that's beautiful, right? Yeah, it is hard lessons.

Vicki Habecker: 1:09:27

We asked our kids recently said, Do you sit thinking about doing this podcast? Do you see anything you know in us that is giving you cause, or, oh my gosh, are we going we're going that route. And the only thing that one of my daughters who has she's she's gonna tell it like it is. Y'all can guess which one that is. She said, You just ask the same questions all the time. If you just answered me that I wouldn't have to. Because I think at least now, with older adults and grandkids asking questions about what's going on in their life and their lives are crazy. Understand that, but asking questions, I just think it's a way to stay connected. I don't think it's because I'm losing it

Mary Yarbrough: 1:10:18

could be

Vicki Habecker: 1:10:21

i There's a financial strain that goes with so that's another reason for our listeners too. Like Don said, Do you? Do you your parents, your loved ones may have a will power of attorney, financially, medically, but do you know where they are? Do you know where their life insurance policies are? There's a lot of things preparing for the end of a journey like this.

Unknown: 1:10:53

Absolutely, and I

Vicki Habecker: 1:10:55

think especially today, we're talking about mothers and daughters. And you know, Mother Daughter relationships are so beautiful, most of them, you know, and they can be very challenging at times. So that's why I wanted on this podcast today, too, for us to talk as women to women and watching our mothers, who I love. What you said, Mary at the end, you knew exactly, exactly God had given you your mother for those times. And you knew exactly, and I knew exactly, and I miss her every day she's been gone. I don't even know how many years now, but the verse that sustained me through, gee, 18 years. Isaiah, 43, two, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you. Namira, you got your eyes open. Is this your same verse? Well, I'm sorry. I get to read it first. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. Remember those days when you thought, I can't do this anymore. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you, for I am the Lord your God.

Mary Yarbrough: 1:12:09

Amen. Cannot believe that just this morning, I asked the Lord for a verse. I said, Take me back, Lord. What was I reading? And immediately is Isaiah, 43 opened it up, and it was and right before that, the first verse, I think one of the ways that I knew how much God loved me and he wanted me to love my mother through him, were these first verses. He says, I Who created you, I who formed you. I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name, Mary. And this is the reason that I want you to love your mother well, because she can, she can, can't believe seems like the Holy

Vicki Habecker: 1:12:57

Spirit. Let me ask one other question, did your mothers ever suspect they were losing it? Because everything that I've read said, If you think you might be losing it, you're not, because someone with true dementia doesn't realize. But did your mothers ever go, oh, never. No, mine didn't either, and I haven't. So no, I mean, I suspect it, especially when I walk in a room and go, Now, why am I here? And where are my clothes? Um, thank you both. And I hope this are our listening audience. And I you know, one of the things I hope most of these podcasts are designed for people 60 and above, but I hope whoever's listening to this one today get your 30 year old and your 40 year old just not to scare them about what might be in store, but just To be prepared. I had no clue what to expect when my mother's dementia started, and I doubt y'all did either. So any closing thoughts dawn. Thank you. Oh,

Unknown: 1:14:13

thank you. This was a gift and a blessing. It's hard to sort back through those emotions and but it is so encouraging to revisit God's faithfulness. Each and every day, he does go before us. He does provide what we need, just what we need, just in time, right? And so that was there are gifts and blessings along the journey. I would want people to know that, as they're entering into this process, that there is hard, there is painful, there is sadness, but there is undergirding, and there is hope and there is faithfulness, and to lean into your community around you. Amen, let people pray for you. People come alongside that will go and visit your elderly parents that are in a hard place. It's hard for all of us to receive but we need one another, especially during times like this. So thank you

Vicki Habecker: 1:15:15

very. Cute. Closing thoughts.

Mary Yarbrough: 1:15:18

Just recently, I won't quote the whole thing, but I love Elizabeth Elliot. She's just one of my very, very favorites. And so she had a it was about waiting. And she said, you know, we want to run ahead, but God wants us to wait. And the last part of it, it says, Because, and then I believe in a situation like this, in suffering, in the conflict and adversity, God is doing something in our souls that we are not Interested in. And so I what the the fruit that comes from it is those soul, that soul work and just cooperating with them in in the in the process, we come out with gold, just gold, amen,

Vicki Habecker: 1:16:17

like my original statistics, by a certain age, what? Two thirds people with dementia, or women, so girls, it's either you or you or me. Two of us are gonna we're gonna need some help anyway. Thank you to our audience. I hope this was a blessing and and either helped you get rid of some painful memories or some guilt, some discouragement, and I hope that it's prepared you to have those hard conversations with your kids, so that our transitions to glory will not be a painful time for our children and our grandkids. So anyway, goodbye. Finishing, well, I've got to learn how to turn this thing off now, but we hope you have been blessed. Thank you, Hal for trusting these three gals to come in here to your studio and do this. But everybody, have a great day, and we will be glad. Hal will be glad on the finishing well website to answer any questions, to help you with any resources. And that's one thing. There are so many wonderful resources out there. If one of your loved ones is going through this dementia journey, that will give you great ideas. My mother used to say, I want to go home. And Daddy would say, well, you are home. She said, No, I want to go home. So he would put her in the car. They'd drive around the block, and then pull back up in front, and she'd say, Oh, good, we're home, so just little tips and things like that. Well, okay, everyone, have a great day. Thank you for listening. We love y'all.

Dr Hal Habecker: 1:18:16

Thank you for listening to this. Finish it well, podcast. We hope you were encouraged by today's conversation and living out your God given purpose. Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts, or you can find us at finishing well ministries.org, forward slash podcast. If you have a question, a comment or a suggestion or an idea, send a note to me. Hal@finishingwellministries.org check out our website and our vision to change the way we think about our aging season of life. Go to finishingwellministries.org and visit our website. We'll see you next time, and may the word bless and encourage you.