Midnight in Suburbia

Plot Information

Plot Background Story: Memory

Memory is important to human beings. It makes up parts of our culture. It is our yesterday and today's that create our tomorrows. When memory goes so does part of our past. It seems that our short term memory goes first. This happens when a person has dementia or Alzheimer's disease. The short term memory goes and then finally all the memories of a person's past.

When the memory starts to go then other parts of the personality appear to go with it, but the problem is that there is brain damage of some type that causes the short term memory problems and the other weird things that happen to the loved one going through this traumatic event. Some of the other things that happen is forgetting one is divorced. My mother forgot her parents were dead. Sometimes at night she would wake up crying for her mother. I could not tell her that they were dead and buried in Blackwell Oklahoma because she would not have believed me .

One night Mom woke up and wanted to serve the man in the third booth because she thought that she still worked at the Showboat or at Bob's Grill, I do not know where she thought she worked, but she wanted to serve the man in the third booth. I had to get her out of bed and give her the walker. We went through the house so that she could see she was home and not at work. This did not help because she wanted to go outside, get in the car and river herself to work. I could not let her do this, so I gently got her back to bed. She was angry with me because she thought I got her fired, but the nest morning she forgot all about it This is what happens as the disease of Alzheimer's progress eventually the suffer forgets everything and in the final stages the suffer cannot control her bowels or any other bodily function.

I want to show in this story how Alzheimer's affect the individual and the family. I am writing a fiction story because I cannot face the project from the point of view of my own caregiving experience. I have to use fiction as a way to deal with this issue. I want to show how the disease begins and how it progresses until the family gets the diagnosed and has to confront the issue of a love one losing her life and past memories. I want to show how Alzheimer's affects the family and the individual.

The suffer forgets everything, sometimes even the loved one who is the caregiver. This is a devastating disease that has no cure as yet. There are ways to slow it's progress but it has no cure. There is no cure for the fear that goes through a person's mind when a loved one is diagnosed with Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. There are several forms of dementia and they are all devastating but Alzheimer's causes personality changes and it causes the loved one to become angry or paranoid and believe everyone is stealing form her or hates her.

Memory is everything to a human being. It contains our past and present and makes up our future. If a person loses his or her memory for even a short time it has devastating effects on the person. When a person is diagnosed with Alzheimer's or another form of dementia then the person and the family are devastated. The lose of memory is not the only issues with a person diagnosed with dementia there are other effects there is paranoid and anger. A person often loses touch with reality and cannot tell the difference between a dream that occurs in the night and something that has happened during the day or in the past. The person who is diagnosed sometimes does not even know he or she has dementia. The person may realize something is wrong, but will not know what it is. In the later stages that person may not even know the loved one caring for her. People with this disease can forget their entire family. There is no cure at present, but there may be a cure in the future the important thing is to get the disease diagnosed at an early stage so it can be slowed by medication and exercise. This is important for both the suffer and the family of the patient. This is what happens when it is diagnosed and someone must give up his or her life to take care of the loved one the father or mother or husband or wife suffering from this dreadful this hateful this demonic disease.This this the story of one woman and her struggle to care for her mother who is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at the age of 90 This is her story and it is partly my story as well. I hope the reader will understand why I am using a fiction novel to write about this disease. I may write it form a nonfiction point later but right now I can only write about if from the point of view of a protagonist and antagonist this the the story of a family of a woman and her lover of a woman and her brother of a woman and her mother. This is all our stories and we cannot stop telling their stories until the disease is cured and we all can retain our memories into our later years and our personalities in those years as well. I hope the reader understands why I am writing this as a fiction novel and not a memory nonfiction book this story cannot be told any other way at present, at least not by me. I am doing the best I can by incorporating every one of my experiences in this book as well as other experience that could and possibly has happened to other people dealing this this horrid disease. This is the story of humanity told from the point of view of a few individuals suffering from this disease because the suffer is not the only one suffering form it all the entire family suffers from this disease as well. This is to you Mama and all the people who helped care for you and gave me support in my attempt to care for you. I love you Mama and I hope this story does you justice. Please forgive me if I cry while I am writing this because I feel the need to cry over what happened to you. I sometimes think I could had did a better job to help you enjoy your final years. I am sorry you did not get to see your century make. I would like to live to be 100 myself and te3ll everyone how bad this disease is and how it affected me and the rest of the family. This is the story of humanity and of one of its components.

Remembering My Experience As an Alzheimer's Caregiver

The house is silent now that my mother has transcended. I could type for hours on Saturday or Sunday without looking up to see how she is doing, but I still pause my typing to look at the sport her wheelchair occupied. I could sleep all night without having to wake up at midnight to go into her room and check on her, but I still wake up listening for the oxygen concentrator or holding my breath thinking I heard her call my name. After eleven month without her, I still listen for the signs that she is in the house and needs me to help her out of bed or help her eat.

I remember the signs that indicated something was wrong, but I thought it was just another sign of old age and the ordinary aging process. Signs that should have been red flags indicating there was more going on then the natural aging process of the human brain. I did not know that her little hi-cups of memory or the slightly odd (or perhaps I should say weird) actions were the symptoms of dementia. It is true that only "...a doctor can diagnose the early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease."1 Still their are differences, even though those differences are slight, between the symptoms of the disease and normal age-related changes in the brain. Sometimes I wonder, if Mom would have lived longer if we had caught this disease early enough.

There is nothing I can do the change the past. I cannot bring Mom back, I can only remember my experience and write about them. Since I am too close to the experience to write about it from a nonfiction point of view, I will write about it from the point of view of a character in a novel. I chose the working title Midnight in Suburbia because that is the time most caregivers wake up listing for the voice or the footsteps of their loved ones suffering from Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia. I have to write this story, I only hope that I can describe the emotions of the protagonist, Daniella Coffey in such a way that the reader's sympathize with her and take their loved ones to a doctor if they suspect the person is suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

I remember my experiences as an Alzheimer's caregiver. The experiences are still fresh in my mind, still waiting just under the surface of consciousness to raise their heads and bring tears to my eyes or laughter to my lips. It sounds odd that there should be humor in such a horrid disease, but some of the thing my mother did were extremely funny and I still laugh about them when I think about them. Other things were heartrending and terrifying, it is these incidents that bring tears to my eyes. I will write about some of these events in this novel, but I will put other things in the novel that did not happen with my mother, but could have happened.

Plot Points Inventory #1

A full set of dentures in a round green Tupperware container
A chicken leg bone in a brown shoulder bag
Singing crystal bird - an auditory hallucination
Two men standing in the vegetable garden - a visual hallucination
Handwritten note hidden in a book of poems
A dream about a girl standing by the bed - cannot tell difference between the dream and reality
Burns twenty lb. turkey to a crisp because forgot it was in oven
Goes to restaurant and thinks ordered breakfast instead of dinner
Appears to be sowing dress when sitting at dining room table
Accuses bank of stealing money

Plot Point Inventory #2

A full set of dentures in a round green Tupperware container
          Amity wakes up & claims someone stole her teeth
A chicken leg bone in a brown shoulder bag
          Amity slips chicken leg bone into her should bag
Singing crystal bird - an auditory hallucination
          Amity hears a crystal bird (not a music box) singing
Two men standing in the vegetable garden - a visual hallucination
          Amity thinks the scarecrow in Daniella's garden is real & sees another man talking to him
Handwritten note hidden in a book of poems
          Note is is Amity's handwriting & it gives a telephone number a man's name beside it
A dream about a girl standing by the bed - cannot tell difference between the dream and reality
          Amity screams & when the someone checks it out she says a girl was standing by her bed & told her...
Burns twenty lb. turkey to a crisp because forgot it was in oven
          This happens with when Amity in Oklahoma
          Amity didn't remember putting turkey in oven & visited neighbor
Goes to restaurant and thinks ordered breakfast instead of dinner
          This happens in Las Vegas
          The restaurant is a Marie Callendar's
Appears to be sowing dress when sitting at dining room table
          Daniella notices her mother making some odd movement at dinner table
Accuses bank of stealing money
          Amity doesn't remember making large purchase with her debit card, which causes her account is overdrawn

Plot Points Inventory #3

Chapter 1 or Chapter 2: Amity burns twenty lb. turkey to a crisp because forgot it was in oven
          This happens with when Amity in Oklahoma
          Amity didn't remember putting turkey in oven & visited neighbor
          Daniella arrives to find the fire department putting out the fire
Chapter 2 or Chapter 3: Ethan arrives for Thanksgiving to find Daniella preparing to take Amity back to Las Vegas
          Ethan volunteers to remain in Oklahoma & live in house while repairs are being made
          Ethan finds all of this father clothes & other things packed in attic
          Neighbors hint at Amity's odd behavior over past 12 months
          Ethan finds a handwritten note hidden in a book of poems inscribed to Amity
                    Note is is Amity's handwriting & it gives a telephone number a man's name beside it
                    Ethan investigates
Chapter 4 and Later Chapters: Amity & Daniella are in Las Vegas where the following happens
          A full set of dentures in a round green Tupperware container
                    Amity misplaces dentures & can't find them
                              Amity wakes up & claims someone stole her teeth
          A chicken leg bone in a brown shoulder bag
                    Amity slips chicken leg bone into her should bag
                              Amity doesn't know how chicken leg bone got in purse
          Singing crystal bird - an auditory hallucination
                   {e;Bulletr} Amity hears a crystal bird (not a music box) singing
          Two men standing in the vegetable garden - a visual hallucination
                    Amity thinks the scarecrow in Daniella's garden is real & sees another man talking to him
          Accuses bank of stealing money
                    Amity doesn't remember making large purchase with her debit card, which causes her account is overdrawn
          Amity has odd or weird response when she meets Preston & some of the other characters

Footnotes
1  http://www.earlysymptomsalzheimers.com/early-alzheimers-symptoms?gclid=CLapytDep...