Who's Johnny?

The Alzheimer's seems to be taking over more and more. To me, it seems Mom's decline in the past two months has been more than in the past two years. It's been scary to see the rapid progression, but also not that surprising. Dad suspects that one of the study drugs she was on with the Mayo was doing more to slow the progression than we thought. (They recently stopped the study due to some undisclosed side effects.)

The biggest change I have noticed with Mom is all of her chattering. A few months ago, time spent with her was mostly spent in silence. Any efforts to engage her in conversation were usually unsuccessful. She would respond with a one word answer, or with a response that had no relevance to the question at all. My feelings are that she was very aware of her Alzheimer's and its limitations on her conversational skills, and she preferred to not talk to save herself the struggle and embarrassment.

But now? Now she talks all the time. She chatters on about all sorts of things: what she sees, colors, the earth, babies, and "Johnny." Most of what she says doesn't make much sense, and often if you try to engage her on one of those topics, it doesn't really go anywhere. She seems to be hallucinating almost all of the time now. And not only does she talk about "Johnny", she talks to him. Sometimes she'll even call Dad Johnny.

So, I asked her recently: "Mom, who's Johnny?"

She just shrugged and laughed, "You know, I'm not really sure. But I think he's a playboy."

And that made me laugh, too. It was a rare moment where I could laugh at the Alzheimer's. It doesn't seem to bother her one bit that this character Johnny hangs around. Perhaps he's a suave fella and he's working all of his charms on my Mom? If so, I think that's great. Go Mom.

So, even though she's declined, I feel a strange reassurance with this stage that she's at. She no longer seems aware that she has Alzheimer's, and therefore, doesn't have to feel bad about it. She freely chatters throughout the day, and often laughs about what she's saying. It seems like the world inside of her head maybe isn't such a bad place to be.

And now when I'm around her, it gives me comfort just to hear her talk.

Even if it is to her playboy fantasy friend, Johnny.