Mom had a pretty quiet day today. Not too many instances of delusion and agitation. I can identify the condition now. There are two parts. The first part is that she is uttering words and phrases that have no meaning, no sensible meaning. They are repetitious - "oil", "white, white, white". There are also songs that she sings over and over, "Tom, Tom the piper's son...", "Oh, we ain't got a barrel of money...". Also, she will whistle the same tune on repeat. As soon as I hear these sounds, I am at the point of my nerves being so frayed that they are like chalk on a blackboard. But it isn't just the words, phrases, songs and whistling. It is also the tone - her face is serious, she is nodding her head, she is looking at me as if she is making a serious pronouncement about something. She is distinctly unhappy in her comportment. She can get very loud and aggressive with the noisemaking.

I haven't been able to interrupt it or change her mood without great effort. And I am so low on energy right now as I deal with a perfect storm of depletion:

1. Grieving the loss of Jethro - his life ended on December 2 and I am still adjusting to the new reality that he is no longer with us, he won't be coming home;

2. Mom was still testing positive for covid as of Dec 12 (she first tested positive Nov 16) which has meant ending Angel Heart service while she is testing positive, and also Knoll is staying away until she tests negative (he is also dealing with an extended sinus condition, as have I - from our covid infection); Arnt has stayed away to avoid covid exposure, Holly has been avoiding visiting to protect Eridanus from exposure - I have been missing the extra help and the ability to get away from Mom for a few hours to get a bit of a break;

3. Mom's ears were bothering her - itchy and her hearing was deteriorating - I couldn't get her to the clinic because of her covid status, we finally found an Urgent Care Clinic that would take her and Matt got her ears cleaned out last Wednesday, Dec 14 (it took from 11 am to 4 pm). She also got her pneumonia vaccine and her flu shot on that outing;

4. Her hearing is still not good (as of today);

5. Mom's dementia has been getting worse - longer periods of word salad, singing, whistling, commenting on everything I am doing - it is exhausting even if I am at my best; I spoke to Dr. Grant on Dec 14 about how to manage the dementia and he said to stick with a routine structure, get her up at the same time every day, stick with a schedule for meals, activities, etc. The problem is there hasn't been anyone here to do things with Mom, so it all comes down to me, and I am just trying to keep the household going, managing for her care;

6. It is harder to get Mom outside, although getting her out for a walk is very good for her mental health and the dementia effect;

7. Mom's covid symptom was mainly a dry cough and sleeping a lot. She seemed to get over that without too much trouble, but the following week she had this wet cough show up - the COPD cough, and that took more nursing attention - extra inhalers, monitoring her rest, keeping her comfortable;

8. Mom had an incident of a loose bowel, where she wasn't able to get to the commode in time and ended up soiling herself - this was new and we had to adjust her PEG, get her stools solid enough but not constipated - that took a few weeks of adjustments, monitoring, and dealing with painful bowel movements when she was constipated.

Suffice to say it has been a complex, evolving situation for providing care to Mom, even though the actual work of caregiving - managing the household and taking care of Mom - are not that difficult to do. It is the mental and emotional exhaustion, and the underlying resentment at feeling taken advantage of and at the same time taken forgranted by a medical system that actually profits from my labour while giving me nothing to support the work I am doing.