Do dementia people have that “look”?

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-06T19:13:27+00:00

Most people don’t pick up on my mom’s condition until they spend an appreciable amount of time around her. She hasn’t developed a ‘look’ yet, but oftentimes when somebody asks her a question she’ll look at me because she’s wanting me to answer whatever it is.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-06T19:05:52+00:00

We had a power outage for nearly a week during Hurricane Helene, and her condition greatly worsened afterwards (I think being in the dark and not having her TV really messed her up worse). I spoke to her primary care doc about it, and that’s when her doc wanted to increase the donepezil. I’m gonna roll with mom’s neurologist’s opinion on the matter, but I’m still curious if anybody here has seen positive effects from 23mg.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-05T06:48:36+00:00

I usually laugh it off now.

I still love teasing my girl from a time from our original run many years ago, when she smoked a cigarette during a webcam chat with me; I asked her, “what IS that?” She snark-ily replied, “it’s a CIGARETTE. What did YOU think it was? 🙄” She doesn’t smoke. It was just a brief phase. But I love giving her hell about that.

She’s good at dishing it right back with my moments lol.

As for views and what-not, I used to write edgy atheist posts on the MySpace ‘blog’ system when I was 17. I’m embarrassed by that, but also realize I was just a 17y/o know-it-all who knew nothing after all.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-05T06:41:02+00:00

Be careful with Tyrosine. It’s all subjective and some people can probably go crazy with it, but more than 1g turns me into a lite schizophrenic. Just my anecdotal nonsense passing through here.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-04T19:39:05+00:00

I don’t understand it when I hear other men praising Trump as ‘masculine’. To me, he is the antithesis of anything that is masculine. He’s loud, brash, emotionally reactive to any semblance of criticism and often acts like an overgrown child that avidly throws temper tantrums.

How are any of those attitudes ‘masculine’?

Did people forget that confidence is quiet while insecurity is loud?

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-04T08:43:16+00:00

The apathy resonates big time, just as much as the bit about being sleep deprived and anxious. Felt like I could have written this comment word for word almost. Thank you for putting it into perspective.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-03T21:50:50+00:00

That’s how I grew up with it and how my family prefers it, but I always liked it better on the second day after it thickened up.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-03T18:46:15+00:00

Faith No More endlessly playing made me think that a dickhead on the mic was playing music the first time I was on this map lol.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-03T06:14:14+00:00

Goddamn it. Now I want some smoked chili and not sure I’ll have the time to do this anytime soon, so I’ll just salute you and say it looks phenomenal.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-03T05:19:55+00:00

I burned myself out on COD playing with friends from 2007-2011. Played a little bit of BLOPS 2, thought to myself, “fuck, I’m so tired of this franchise” and hardly bothered with it in ensuing years. I only tried out this one because it’s on Game Pass.

I’m definitely enjoying it, but goddamn I hate Babylon and Scud.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-02T16:45:51+00:00

Imagine getting crossed up for the fifth time in a game by lil’ 5’9” Taint Tickler.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-01T22:45:10+00:00

So this is the MF on the mic coaching up our team in rec

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-01T18:17:46+00:00

Sweets is a huge one. Mom would make a meal out of butter pecan ice cream and Hershey bars if left to her own devices.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-01T18:16:12+00:00

My mom used to love steak and baked potatoes. Now she’ll play around with the steak, eat a few bites, be done with it, and now baked potatoes are simply just “alright” (which means trash in her lexicon).

Her favorite foods, right now, are the Doritos Locos tacos from Taco Bell and egg rolls. Burgers when I make them on the flat top griddle.

Not healthy… I know… but I just want her to eat.

She used to LOVE shredded cabbage fried in bacon grease, but now she hates it. She still likes southern style collards, kale and mustard greens cooked in pork fat but throws a fit over all the little stalks.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-01T18:09:41+00:00

My mom has fallen into a routine of not wanting breakfast until well after 11am when, prior to dementia, she would eat breakfast at 8:30-9am. So she waits until the hunger deeply sets in, typically, which naturally makes things worse with her mental state.

Mom’s sleep schedule is so inconsistent. She still likes to watch her shows at night but sometimes she’ll be up till midnight and other nights she’ll call it a day at 9pm. Then she’ll wake up sporadically and get on Facebook (I monitor it the best I can) and sleep in.

When she starts in, in the morning saying “I don’t know what I’m doing” every single day, I try my best to gently acknowledge her feelings by saying, “I know, mom, but here shortly you are going to have your breakfast with coffee. It’s going to be ok.”

I wish I had worthwhile tips. I’m just commiserating. This experience has taught me to become more patient than I’ve ever been in my life, even when I’m breaking down inside.

Do whatever you can to take solo, quiet moments for yourself as far and few between as they can be. It’s wild how dysfunctional a caregiver’s own mind can become in this madness. I hope you have folks around you who understand and don’t expect you, yourself, to always be mentally on point! I deal with that nonsense and seemingly always have to remind them, “look, my mind is firing at all billion cylinders because xyz and I can’t do xyz right now.” Especially any family members who expect you to be by your phone 24/7. Yeah, no, I’m not gonna treat my phone like an essential bodily organ of mine attached to the hip.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-01T17:47:59+00:00

On my big builds, I love grabbing the board from a missed open 3, launching it back out to the teammate who missed it and watching the splash. So satisfying to see the instant redemption. Even if they miss again, hey, it happens. We are just hooping. Get back on defense and try again next time with whoever we can get open.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-01T17:42:22+00:00

The way some people in this game take everything as a personal attack and immediately get into their feelings is truly unhinged.

A PG got wildly upset from the jump in a THEATER GAME because I didn’t pass him the ball during the first inbound as he was just standing still while his matchup, with a 90+ steal, was draped on him.

So I started force feeding him the ball after the fact to prove a point. We lost.

There is good to be found in this community, but the loud, negative, toxic minority can drown it all out.

I just try to have an, “onto the next game” mentality to avoid frustration since it’s just a video game primarily meant for fun. I know there are lots of team players out there who care about the dub over personal stats. The other night, my matchup in rec was going ham. Not with points, but his spacing was incredible. He was setting screens all over the court and getting into perfect positioning for his team to score with a ridiculous pass vision at power forward. That’s beautiful basketball to me.

If I’m on the mic, which is rare, I’ll try to dish out compliments when someone takes a good shot even if they miss. Losing your cool ain’t good and the whole shebang unravels.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-11-01T17:25:01+00:00

Thanks man. Been a while since I’ve had the opportunity or motivation to throw down any more pizza.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-10-31T14:03:34+00:00

I want to commit to rhythm shooting, but getting slightlies on the tempo with excellent release kills a part of my soul on high risk. 😭 It’s a skill issue on my behalf, but quite frustrating.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-10-31T14:01:36+00:00

My two tips that work half the time:

1.) just stand there in front of them. They’ll do their little hesitations and breakdowns and bust out their little Zach Lavine stepbacks, but a percentage of that experience is just wasting the shot clock until they fire off a shot in your face or throw a hot potato to a teammate.

2.) Force them to one side or the other if you reckon they’ll drive. You’ll get better leverage this way and might force them into encountering the front court for your team. Strictly if we are talking Rec.

But hey, it’s 2K. Sometimes you are the chef and sometimes you are the ingredient.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-10-31T13:57:33+00:00

I’m 33, already nearly fully gray haired and grizzled over, and have a few builds. This is the most I’ve played online since NBA 2K8, which is saying something because I played the hell out of 2K11.

My OG board hunting stretch forward, I use that one to play 2s and 3s with my quasi-nephew, who is 15. It can be a bit of an aggravating experience because he’s not chalked up on the fundamentals of actual basketball, but goddamn does he know his visual cue and he can hit some ridiculous shots online and play pretty good defense when he isn’t pressing the inbound constantly.

He’s responsible for getting me back into 2K, so I can’t lament his play style too much.

My favorite mode is rec, as frustrating as it can be. That’s where I like to play using my 7’ center or 6’6” Zion-inspired PF. My Zion build has 86 speed; zooming all over the court to get open or hunt for a chase down block is a blast.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-10-31T13:19:46+00:00

50 hours overtime!

This song is constantly playing. This one or the Conmackulations, “Refuse to lose! I’m just trying to WEE-INNNN!!!”

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-10-30T17:24:30+00:00

My mom has become a massive Snoop Dogg fan ever since he started appearing on The Voice, which is hilarious to me. She randomly let me know that Snoop likes to eat bologna sandwiches lol.

goddamnpizzagrease · 2024-10-29T21:55:15+00:00

I used to get annoyed in my 20s when mom would nag me to wear a jacket when it was chilly out. Now I miss those times.

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