Thanksgiving Meal

We had our family Thanksgiving meal last week. We set up the food allowing everyone to walk through and make a plate. My mother went first. I captured her experience of selecting the food she wanted.

She struggles to decide what items she wants on her plate and tries to balance holding her plate while dishing the food onto it. Her facial expression becomes distorted as she attempts to dish the potatoes onto her plate. It is difficult for me to see a once vibrant food lover fading into what I see today.




Getting her to eat has become a struggle. She will often say she is not hungry. She has lost so much weight, we have all become very concerned. However, we have made great strides in getting her to eat more. One year ago she weighed almost 10 pounds less than she does today.

I have observed her forgetting the names of food items:

pepper, banana, cinnamon toast ...

I wonder if she is also struggling to comprehend what food is when we refer to it by name only. Last night I asked her if she wanted meatloaf or Manwich (Sloppy Joes) for dinner. She had a puzzled look on her face when I said Manwich. She asked me to repeat it a few times and never seemed to recognize what I was referring to--although she has had this meal several times in the last few years. She eventually answered, "Meatloaf." When she saw the other plates in the kitchen, she asked what it was we were eating.

Is this strictly language loss or word comprehension declining? Or a general disinterest in food itself? There is an element of it that is an emotional connection. If she is upset about something or in an episode of paranoid behavior, she will refuse to eat as if that is a punishment to the rest of us. Rather I think it is her grasping onto this as a means of control.

There are often times when she is focused on other activities and if she does not finish sorting the dogfood for example, it's as if she cannot possibly stop to eat until she completes the self-created task before her. During the day, when we are gone for work and school, I believe she forgets to eat. Sometimes midday I will ask her, "Mom, are you hungry for lunch?" She will reply, "I just ate my breakfast." Yet I know that was several hours ago.

The good that I can cling onto from this holiday--as difficult as some things are to watch, I know that next year she could be much farther progressed into the disease. In five years, we may not be able to sit and have some of the conversations that we did with her this Thanksgiving.

She forgot my son's name on Thanksgiving... One day she might not know who any of us are. I am thankful for the good moments that we could share together as a family.