AngelGirl, one of the reasons I decided I can't stay away from this forum is because of people like you. If you didn't think there was any hope left, you wouldn't have made this post. I'm sure much of it has to do with seeing what's happening to your mom.

I want to share something with you because maybe you'll see how this is a part of life and you may not feel so alone.

Eight years ago, my mother started showing sudden symptoms which turned out to be Alzheimer's. I'll never forget the night I received a phone call from her neighbor, saying she has been taken to the hospital. My mother was living alone and woke up her neighbors late at night, knocking on the front door. She was very frightened, saying there were "people in her house, who would not leave". She was diagnosed with "senile dimentia" and released from the hospital after appearing normal a few days later. I ended up having to go and stay with her to make sure she was ok. Things got pretty much back to normal until one night. I woke up to the sound of my mom pounding at my door. She was frightened as could be and had a knife in her hand. She described to me all these people she could see right in front of her, walking through the house. When I saw the front and back door wide open as well, I knew I had to call 911. Soon after that, I had to make the worst, but the only possible, decision to place my mother in a nursing home. Over the next few years, I had to see her slowly slip away from me and the feeling is something I can't explain. She died from final complications of Alzheimer's a year and a half ago and there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about her.

I'm still here an I managed to get through it.

AngelGirl, no matter what happens, you'll be able to do it too.