Ida keeps having "accidents" where she doesn't quite make it to the toilet
on time.   It is very hard for us to keep up with this problem.

I hope we can hold out a little longer if for only one reason;   For someone
in her shape it has to be even more confusing than it already is, to be put
into a strange place.   To her it is possibly true that everyplace is a
"strange place," but she does seem to have some sort of a functioning memory
of sorts, if only to know where the bathroom is and where her room is and
who we are.   Those things are still present.

I spoke to a guy at the local daycare center and he was remarking how awful
it is, and in three years how far she has gone.   It is true.  In three
years she has become a shell of her former self.

Three years ago she was continent, rational, dressed herself and knew her
clothing tastes, wore appropriate jewelry for her outfits, combed her own
hair, fed herself, walked well, had social conscience about wanting to help
in the house etc and would argue with you from dawn till dusk asking to go
home and such.   She knew what she wanted and made sense, though her memory
was definitely impaired.   She no longer could keep her house and pay her
bills effectively, but she still had a lot of her personality.

Now she is incontinent, walks hunched over with tiny steps, has terrible
balance and bad spatial placement judgement.   She cannot dress herself, and
doesn't care much what she wears.   She can still feed herself as long as
everything is cut up small.   She can talk, but speaks mostly in
monosyllables, yes and no and such.   She can't put together any kind of a
complete thought, but if it is simple enough she can make herself
understood.

She has indeed stopped the constant babble and all the arguing, but every
now and then there is a flash of the old Ida.   Like someone recently said
here, you somehow wonder if one day they will suddenly get well and remember
everything and be who they once were.   Alas the clear moments are getting
fewer, and now with these recent incontinence issues, I fear we are going
into yet another stage, and I don't know if I can handle it.

We said we were going to place her a couple of months ago, and we didn't do
it.   I keep myself going by saying every day she is here with us, she has
the last vestiges of what is familiar around her, and the last bits of her
(somewhat) cognitive time, with family.   This fecal incontince issue may be
the final straw that puts us over the edge.