Life with a Demented Drama Queen

By Kayce Lassiter

Heart-wrenching and laugh-out-loud funny account of Kayce Lassiter's efforts to care for an aging deaf mother sliding into the darkness of dementia in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

How had this become my life? When had my previously almost magical life sprouted wings and been replaced with day after day in a circus fun house…one with mean clowns determined to suck the ever-loving life from me?

A year ago, my life was all about writing, marketing, going to writer's conferences, and having my picture taken with gorgeous male cover models. Now I'm suddenly nursemaid to my mother—a deaf drama queen sinking into the abyss of dementia who hallucinates bugs that fart black clouds of poison. And if that isn't enough, let's just add a flipping pandemic, social distancing, and product shortages into the mix. Why not?

Totally inappropriate thoughts and stories about living with an extremely dramatic mother afflicted with dementia, who was also a deaf sign-language user. How I dealt with the insanity and chaos on the days that I could, and how I didn't on the days that I couldn't.

This book is not a soft, touchy-feely, sweet story about how to love and coddle your parent suffering from dementia. It's not a medical look into the disease, and it's not a how-to manual giving you all the ins and outs of how to deal with dementia. In fact, I recommend you do not follow my example.

It is my attempt at figuring out how to survive inside the insane asylum that had become my mother's mind. It's about how it sometimes takes dark humor to retain your own sanity amidst the turmoil, about how laughter can be OKAY when it is the only thing keeping you from slipping over the bleeding edge of crazy. It's about how totally inappropriate behavior can sometimes be the only thing that allows you to live inside the chaos your life has morphed into.

If you are uncomfortable with dark, sarcastic humor or extremely offended by curse words, then this book IS NOT for you.
But if you're the person who understands that sometimes you have to hang off the edge a bit in order to keep it all together inside your own mind, who understands that sometimes sanity-retaining laughter can be totally inappropriate and totally necessary, who is perhaps a person trying to navigate the landmines of a loved one's dementia yourself, then settle in and keep reading. This book is most definitely for you.

Amanda Cabot, bestselling author - "Life with a Demented Drama Queen is a book that deserves to be read."

P. A. Dycus - "While the subject matter of this story is emotional, Lassiter is able to deliver it in page-turner fashion. This is a must read for everyone, whether you are a medical or care-giving professional, a family member facing the decline of a loved one, or just someone looking for an inspiring real-life story."

Cassie Ryan, author of My Obsession - "A strong dose of reality during a world-wide pandemic, a large dollop of humor, and a whole lot of love. Within the span of a few pages, it made me both cry and laugh out loud. Highly recommended."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kayce Lassiter
• Release date: Oct 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215428597

Kayce Lassiter

Kayce writes snarky contemporary romance in a country setting—what she calls "Chick Lit in Cowgirl Boots" and she likes to throw in some magic now and then just for fun. Now she is adding nonfiction works to her catalogue, which include dysfunctional family stories—something she knows a heck of a lot about.Kayce is a consummate smart-alec, which shows in her humorous, heart-tugging stories about everyday people complete with broken hearts and all the flaws that come with being human. Some of her characters will make you laugh, others will touch your heart, but they will all take you to a world where dreams are possible, hearts can be mended, and people survive through the power of love.A second-generation native Arizonan, Kayce was born to deaf parents and grew up on a dairy farm. Living on a farm as a kid can be fun, but it can be lonely too. So she learned to dream, to imagine, to pretend—something she's never grown out of. She still lives in rural Arizona with her horse and dogs, including a nut-job named Riley whose claim to fame is having eaten an entire rattan chair in one afternoon.So let Kayce introduce you to her world of "Chick Lit in Cowgirl Boots" and seriously dysfunctional families. After all, what would a good story be without a little magic, or a crazy or two? That's what makes the world go round—right?

Book preview

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THE DISCLAIMER

What This Story Is NOT

As you can probably tell from the title, this story is not a soft, touchy-feely, sweet story about how to love and coddle your parent suffering from dementia. It’s not a medical look into the disease, and it’s not a how-to manual giving you all the ins and outs of how to deal with dementia. In fact, I recommend you do not follow my example.

What This Story IS

This story is my attempt at figuring out how to survive inside the insane asylum that had become my mother’s mind. It’s about how it sometimes takes dark humor to retain your own sanity amidst the turmoil, about how laughter can be OKAY when it is the only thing keeping you from slipping over the bleeding edge of crazy. It’s about how totally inappropriate behavior can sometimes be the only thing that allows you to live inside the fun house full of mean clowns that your life has morphed into.

If you are uncomfortable with dark, sarcastic humor or extremely offended by curse words, then this book IS NOT for you. Return it now and get your money back.

But if you’re the person who understands that sometimes you have to hang off the edge a bit in order to keep it all together inside your own mind, who understands that sometimes sanity-retaining laughter can be totally inappropriate and totally necessary, who is perhaps a person trying to navigate the landmines of a loved one’s dementia yourself, then settle in and keep reading. This book is most definitely for you.

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The information contained in this book is provided by Kayce Lassiter and The Booked Worm, LLC, and is offered for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only. Kayce Lassiter is not a licensed legal or medical practitioner and nothing in this book is intended as legal, professional, or medical advice. Readers should not act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included herein, without exercising personal judgment or seeking appropriate legal counsel or other relevant advice from a trained professional.

Kayce Lassiter and The Booked Worm, LLC expressly disclaim all liability with respect to actions taken or not taken by the reader based on any or all of the information or other contents within this book or provided by Kayce Lassiter directly.

Life With a Demented Drama Queen

©Copyright Kayce Lassiter 2022

Cover Art by Kayce Lassiter ©Copyright August 2022

All rights are reserved.

Without limiting the rights under the copyrights reserved above, no portion of this book may be reproduced in whole or part, scanned, photocopied, recorded, or distributed in any printed or electronic form, or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without the prior express written permission of both the publisher and the author/copyright owner, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Neither the publisher or the author assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

Published by The Booked Worm Publishing

First Edition October 2022

DEDICATION

I dedicate this story to my amazing mother, Doris Lorraine Krampe—to her strength, her humor, her determination, and her absolutely unquenchable spirit.

Doris dedicated her entire life to raising her children and working for her people. Being deaf from the age of three and a sign language user, she grew up in a boarding school for the deaf in Tucson, Arizona. The deaf community was her tribe. Her contributions were many, and she was very instrumental in pushing that community to new thresholds.

Among her many contributions was the founding of a local acting troupe, The Phoenix Theater for the Deaf. After serving on many committees and as an officer for a number of deaf organizations, she was also instrumental in the building of the first senior living facility for the deaf in Arizona.

She loved her deaf community and worked tirelessly to improve their lives. She will be missed by so many.

While she had never been easy for me to live with, she was the woman who gave me life and was one of the primary driving forces behind who I am today.

She was everything from the best mother in the world to the biggest burr under my saddle, everything from my anchor in a storm to the person who sold my anchor at a yard sale—and my heart is irretrievably broken with her loss.

I will love and miss her deeply, and forever.

Lee

Contents

1. AND THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS

2. THE STRAW

3. BUGS, BUGS, AND MORE BUGS

4. BABY IN A CAN

5. DRAGON SLAYER

6. SOMETIMES THE DRAGON WINS

7. WATCH OUT FOR THAT TRAIN

8. PERCEPTION IS REALITY

9. OH SURE, BLAME THE KID

10. I’D RATHER EAT CRAP

11. BEWARE THE NAKED WOMAN

12. GOLDILOCKS AND FLAT BURRITOS

13. BEEF GRAVY DOESN’T GO WITH PORK

14. SHOW ’EM YOUR CRAZY, GIRL

15. SPOCK BABYSITS LUCILLE BALL

16. EASTER EGGS AND OUTHOUSE RATS

17. DEMENTIA HAS SKILLS

18. A REASON TO DAY DRINK

19. SPIDERS, SPIDERS EVERYWHERE

20. THE MIND LIKES WHAT IT UNDERSTANDS

21. THE BUG BOOK

22. WEAR YOUR NICEST PANTIES

23. THE SCORCH

24. DRAMA QUEEN BOXED SET

25. REDNECK SHOWER

26. WE ARE CHANGING WHOSE MEDS?

27. IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT

28. BROKEN HEARTS ARE REAL

29. WHAT’S YOUR SUPERPOWER?

30. MAYBE CRAZY WAS ALWAYS CRAZY

31. WHO KNEW?

32. TUCK AND ROLL

33. NO SNOOPING ALLOWED

34. CHOICES AND CHAOS

35. CREATIVE GETS EXPENSIVE

36. CREAM CHEESE RABBIT HOLES

37. THE DIRTIER THE BETTER

38. WHAT’S IN A NAME

39. YOU SAY NINETY, I SAY ONE HUNDRED

40. THE FINAL CHAPTER

AFTERWORD

SIGN UPS

GENERAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

TRADEMARK ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BOOKS BY KAYCE LASSITER

Chapter one

AND THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS

N o, that’s not a bug. That’s a pattern in the flooring. I put my palm to my forehead and worked to keep from shrieking as my mother insisted her bedroom was full of bugs.

Yes, it is, my mother screamed verbally, her hands waving in the air as she tried to sell me on her latest hallucination. She continued her rant in sign language, When it saw me, it spread its wings and farted a dark cloud of poison. It’s dangerous!

I breathed deep and stared at her. This was a new one…a farting bug…a farting poisonous bug.

Really?

How had this become my life? When had my previously almost magical life sprouted wings and been replaced with day after day in a circus fun house…one with mean clowns determined to suck the ever-loving life from me?

A year ago, my life was all about writing, marketing, going to writer’s conferences, and having my picture taken with gorgeous male cover models.

Now I’m nursemaid to my mother—a deaf woman who sees bugs that fart black clouds of poison.

It happened the day I realized COVID-19 was going to become a thing.

Oh, it wasn’t a switch that flipped one day and suddenly I was thrust into a pot of boiling water. No, it was more insidious than that. It had been much like boiling the proverbial frog in hot water by slowly turning up the heat.

Dementia had been taking over my mother for some time…one memory, one hallucination, one moment at a time, sucking me deeper each day into the caregiver role. Pulling me into the darkness so slowly that I didn’t notice just how dark it had become.

Then COVID-19 hit, and the lights went out.

No, it wasn’t the cause. It was simply the event that triggered the lock, the moment when I recognized that I was well and truly trapped. Cooked. The day I understood there would be no escape, no reprieve, no jumping out of the pot. There was no one else who could take this mantle. I was stuck.

It was the day I understood that I needed to move my mother in with me. If I didn’t, I’d never be able to face myself in the mirror ever again.

That was the day my dreams abandoned me; the day hopelessness kicked my ass faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

Okay, I can see I need to give you a little background here, as I’ve started in the middle of the story.

I grew up in a rather colorful (think dysfunctional) family full of people with weird quirks and twisted senses of humor. I was the eldest of three children, and our parents were deaf—not just hard of hearing or old and losing their ability to hear certain tones—deaf, as in sign-language users who depended on their children to be their link with the outside world.

As the oldest, I had to be fluent in sign language to facilitate my parents’ business and social dealings with the world outside the deaf community. I became an adult at a very young age.

I’m what is referred to as a CODA—Child of Deaf Adults—and yes, it is a thing, exactly like in the movie. There is a whole subculture around CODAs, a pattern to their very existence shaped by the need to grow up early, to almost be the child-parent to your own mother and father, and to understand the world outside in such a way that you can interpret it for them—almost before you can walk.

As a CODA, you develop a sense of responsibility for your parents, the need to protect them from the outside world, as well as a deep-seated resentment for the duties thrust upon you at a very young age.

It’s a love-hate relationship that can be very difficult to sort out, even with professional therapists…which I will touch on later in this book.

So, here I was, well into my adulthood and at an age where life should be getting easier for me. But as it got more difficult for my aging mother, I found my life was still tethered to hers like a tire tied to the back of a pickup truck…and she was in the driver’s seat, doing wheelies across a parking lot full of potholes.

That old sense of responsibility to protect never goes away. It’s been instilled from the first moment of your life, and it will stay with you until the last.

Now, I want you to keep in mind that my mother has always been very self-centric and always operated from a basis of feeling. Her behavior was always dictated by her emotions and very often by what was in it for her, or what the neighbors or other deaf people might think. Take logic and throw it out the damn window. It didn’t apply here. She was a purely emotion-based creature.

Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t cold or unfeeling. She was a very warm, welcoming, and loving person with an easy laugh that always lit up a room. But being deaf, she spent a lot of time in her own head, so empathy was sometimes a difficult concept for her when the situation conflicted with her own needs or desires.

She always wanted the best for her children but wasn’t always good at knowing what that was. As a result, her advice could sometimes be iffy. But it was never that she didn’t want good things for us—she just had a limited view of what the options were and, like all of us, she could only operate with what she knew.

Mom was always a very funny woman with a raw, dirty, slap-stick form of humor and a real passion for DRAMA. There was nothing she loved more than a dirty joke, and she told them in a very animated fashion—quite often in public.

Which frequently made me want to crawl under a rock, especially since I was always expected to interpret them for the non-deaf individuals present—again, at a very young age. This was not your average middle-American upbringing.

Gossip was like manna from Heaven to my momma, and the juicier the better. If there wasn’t enough going on in her life and she was bored, Katie bar the door, she was gonna stir shit up. She took drama to a whole new level.

Which left me with a passionate aversion to drama. To offset her wackiness and pot-stirring, I learned to operate only on what I could touch, feel, see, and hear. Logic was the bedrock of my life, the wheels that kept my train on the track, the safety belt that kept me from being sucked into the maelstrom that was Mom.

This may seem rather insignificant, but please keep it in mind for future reference. We had an emotion-based mother with a warped sense of humor being cared for by, and caring for, a logic-based daughter who had spent an entire lifetime being intentionally embarrassed by her mother on one hand, then constantly reminded, What others would think, on the other hand.

Yep, you guessed it. I grew up not giving a flying rat’s ass what others might think and feeling like I’d been reduced to a red-faced nine-year-old every time someone wanted to tell me a dirty joke. Not sure if I turned out the way I did because of my mother’s parenting style, or in spite of it. But either way, she was a huge driving force in my life.

I recently watched the movie CODA and was amazed at how they absolutely nailed both sides of the relationship, which is deep and complicated for everyone. The child becomes the parent in many respects, and the parent becomes the child at times.

There is a tremendous amount of fear for the parents to think about their children leaving home to make their own way in the world. Along with an empty nest comes a severing of their lifeline. They have spent eighteen years depending on this child to communicate for them and interpret the world outside the door.

On the part of the child, there is tremendous guilt associated with leaving. There is the fear that something will happen—the house will burn down, and their parents will perish because they didn’t hear the smoke alarm, or a million other imaginings. There is a constant litany of what-ifs and the incessant questioning of can I live with this?

I’ve often thought that as a CODA, I had to leave home as a teenager—because that’s when I was the most selfish. Had I stayed until my own empathy and compassion had fully developed, I’m not sure I would have gotten out.

For the child, this is a very difficult tie to break, and is totally different from the typical teen who might experience fear of failure at leaving home. The CODA has already proven they can survive because they have taken care of their parents for years. What they fear is that their parents may not survive. The guilt can be paralyzing for those not absolutely determined to strike out on their own.

Looking back, I realize that those teen years at home were not hugely different from the years when I became mom’s caregiver. It was not a new role for me and, unfortunately, it’s a role I had very much resented at one time in my life. So, the old programs were still there, the old frustrations, the anger, the resentment. It all had to be faced and worked through as Mom and I navigated the waters of senior dementia together.

At the time the world twisted on its axis and my future took a serious left turn, my mother was living independently in a care facility, with two caregivers coming in seven days a week to make sure she ate, bathed, got her meds, and had assistance with the daily challenges like putting on socks and panties. We gave up on the bras early in the process.

Being the only family member with the time and resources to take care of my mother, I stepped into the oversight role, managing her meds, finances, doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping, and generally making sure she had all of the facilities, equipment, and personnel in place to keep her healthy, safe, and happy.

As a single woman, it was only me. I have one sister, but she was working many hard hours and had her hands full with her own survival. So, there was pretty much no backup, and no husband or anyone else to manage my home while I was managing hers. Just me. But I was getting it done…not perfect, but good enough.

Then along came COVID-19, and the desire to protect my mother from the outside world once again moved front and center. My gut screamed that if the pandemic spun out of control, which it surely would, a facility would be the worst place for her to be.

The restaurant had closed and simply getting food delivered to a deaf woman was impossible. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, they could not enter her apartment. So, they would hang the bag on the doorknob, knock, and leave.

Unable to hear the knock, she might find it three or four hours later—and with dementia, she didn’t have the capacity to worry about spoilage in the Arizona heat. Never mind the fact that she couldn’t negotiate even the simple act of picking up the phone to call and tell them her meal choice—which residents were required to do daily if they wanted food delivered.

Then there was the issue that she simply did not understand why the menu was now limited and seemed to believe it was reasonable to expect me to drive the thirty-mile roundtrip every day to bring her whatever fast food she felt like eating that day.

Yes, she had a videophone that I could use to call her. But she also had a sleeping disorder and never saw the light flash because she was napping in her chair. Calling to check on her or see what she wanted to eat was out of the question because she only answered her phone about ten percent of the time.

Even the simplest task was very difficult, times twenty.

When her primary caregiver quit on a Monday, citing fears of working around a facility, my sister and I were faced with a tough decision. Should we go through the laborious, frustrating process of hiring another caregiver and struggling to overcome the obstacles the deafness and COVID-19 were throwing in our path, or move her in with one of us?

Since I’m the only one who had the space for another person and the ability to stay home with her, that really meant moving her in with me.

Did I want to do that?

Hell no!

Could I refuse to do what I knew was the right thing?

Again, hell no—not if I wanted to live with myself.

Besides, I was the eldest, the responsible one. I was the only one who knew what meds she took, who all her doctors were, and where their offices were located. I was the only person who knew what her medical ailments were and what surgeries she’d had over the past 88 years. Who else knew she was prone to urinary tract infections, was allergic to codeine, that she wouldn’t eat any cereal but Cream of Wheat, or that she preferred to watch game shows, wrestling, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit twenty-four-seven?

Nope, the job was all mine.

So, when the caregiver quit on Monday, we made the decision to move her to my house on Wednesday, packed her stuff on Friday, and moved her out of her apartment on Saturday. Thank God for strong grandsons who dutifully carted all her crap to the nearest storage unit, as I moved the more critical items to my home.

Oh, and did I mention yet that it was 115 freaking degrees outside in the Valley of the Hotter Than Hell? And that my house was already packed to the rafters with shit I thought I absolutely could not live without?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

This was the move from hell, but our timing was impeccable. We moved her out on Saturday, and on the following Monday they locked down the facility. Had she remained where she was, the nightmare would have taken on EPIC proportions.

The simple act of calling her had required a working videophone and a relay service with a sign language interpreter. With her dementia, she was unable to reboot her phone, which had to be reset at least weekly, and she often had difficulty understanding interpreters she wasn’t familiar with. And all of this was contingent on her ability to even stay awake long enough to see the light flash for an incoming call, or to remember to place an outgoing call.

Without the ability to contact her by phone, who knows what the hell might have happened before I managed to get permission to go in during a lockdown and get her out. On top of that, she simply was unable to understand the import of the pandemic. Mom did not understand the need to maintain distance or wear a mask—none of it meant anything to her.

Well, we dodged that bullet. She was all mine now. The die was cast and there was no turning back.

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Now that you’ve had a little bit of intro to give you some perspective on how I got into this mess, I’m going to tell you some stories about what came next. I’ll tell you how I constructively dealt with some of it, how I melted down over other parts, and how I stuck my head in the sand and ignored what I could neither fix nor improve.

Some days, I just plain stuck my head where the sun doesn’t shine because it looked like a safe, dark harbor.

As you read these stories, please keep in mind that I love my mother very much and that when all else failed, I took this on because I love her and couldn’t abandon her to a senior care system that is very broken and could not keep her safe during a major pandemic.

Don’t get me wrong, I think senior facilities are full of saints who try their best to care for our elderly. They are loving and kind and well-intentioned, but their processes are geared toward the needs of a majority. They’re not equipped to deal with a deaf woman with communication challenges, on top of dementia, and needs outside the norm.

Also keep in mind that I am a very imperfect person who was doing her best to play the cards she’d been dealt—in a game where the rules changed hourly, and in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.

These stories will not be told in chronological order, so take each story as a stand-alone snapshot in time. In addition, the Survival Tips at the end of each chapter may or may not apply to the story outlined in the chapter. Not every story resulted in a lesson learned.

Most of the stories will be like a double-edged sword that will cut you while making you laugh at the same time. The disease of dementia is a heart-breaking, terrible, devastating disease, but if you’re going through it with a loved one, humor will be your best armor—at least, it was for me.

There are times with this disease when you must laugh, or you will go stark raving mad. Other times, you will crumple into a heap in the corner and sob until your timer goes off, reminding you there is another meal to prepare, meds to give, or an overdue breathing treatment.

I’m certain others have dealt with it better.

Or maybe they weren’t dealing with Doris, The Drama Queen.

Morals, Maneuvers, and Machinations

The most any of us can do is, quite simply, our personal best…which I now realize is a moving target. It is also individual as hell. Some people can do more than others. Some can do what they do better than others. Some are destined to fumble through the best they can. And on any given day of the week, there are some things you did yesterday that you simply cannot do today.

Do not expect miracles. You’re dealing with a very ill person, and unless you have film of yourself walking on water and certified witnesses, the best you can expect to do here is good enough.

To do this job and survive, you must learn to forgive yourself. You are only human, and those of us who try all make mistakes that break our hearts. It’s okay. I don’t believe this is a task anyone can truly succeed at, especially if you’re a perfectionist. The best you can hope for is to keep your person safe, continue to love them with all your heart, and ensure their day-to-day needs are met.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to take care of yourself. You can help no one if you’re up to your neck in quicksand. Take one day at a time and deal with things as they come.

Know in your heart you will survive. This is a must-do if you expect to climb out of bed every morning, put on your fuzzy slippers, and put one foot in front of the other. Many have survived it. You will too.

Always remember that your sense of humor may save your sanity; don’t be afraid to use it. As you can tell from my stories, I