Friday, September 14, 2007

what in the cornbread hell is goin' on?

i've heard it said that the personality traits of a person with alzheimer's are amplified. ie: an angry person gets more belligerent, a quiet person gets more calm, a person with a good sense of humor gets even funnier, etc.

well, this is one reason i don't normally say mom suffers from alzheimer's. i just call it dementia because she's funny as all hell and laughs at the drop of a hat. i swear she didn't use to be like that. or maybe i just never really knew her before? i do not know.

after the jump i'll see if i can give you some examples...


last time we went grocery shopping we were driving down greenville avenue. that's party central for those of you unfamiliar with dallas. i'm tellin' you, there aren't as many bars in the state penitentiary. all of a sudden mom starts laughing out LOUD and says, "condom sense? imagine that...a store just for condoms...well, i guess they need it down here on greenville."

then, 2 days ago we were at the birthday party at VT mentioned in the last post. we sat down next to a lady who proudly told us she was gonna be 99 years old in two days. mom said, "i'll be...(i tell her, 85)...i'll be 85 on the 17th."
after a pause, mom looked at our table-mate and asked her, "you think we'll make it?"
they just laughed and laughed.

and just today we were up on her floor when jim, one of the residents, wandered by. neither of us have Ever before seen him without his wife, nancy. he walked over to where we were sitting and hollers out, "have you seen my sister?!"

mom and i look at each other and then back at jim, "you mean nancy? and all this time i thought she was your wife."

jim says, "i can't remember...maybe she is...where'd she go?"

after he left, mom just cracked up and said something to the effect of, "well, at least i'm not that bad off. at least i know if you're my husband or my son."
she didn't stop giggling about that until jim wandered by again 5 minutes later.
--------------------

technical question:
i have several videos from my sony camera, now on my hard drive and in picasa, that i'd like to
a.) edit.
b.) capture stills from.
c.) post on this blog.
if any of y'all could give me advice with that, i'd sure appreciate it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your Mother sounds like a delight, even with her sickness. What a sweetie. Sending Happy Birthday for your Mother.

I wish I could help you with the photos, everything I do on the computer is by trial and error, I just keep at it until it works.

Anonymous said...

opps.. It's, HAPPY BIRTHDAY WISHES

cornbread hell said...

trial and error is my middle name...

and thanks for the birthday wishes, isis. i will pass them on to mary anne.

Unknown said...

Delightful and wonderful stories about your mom. Those are just precious memories.

I have not found any predictability with the disease as for how it affects different personalities. But only a small percentage of patients have the drastic behavior issues. They do get more press.

A pretty simple way to capture stills is to use Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.com/ ) - it will play a lot of different formats and lets you copy a still from the running video.

I don't have a clue how to edit video though.

¸.•*´)ღ¸.•*´Chris said...

Now that was precious!