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Rella, my mom, was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, to Wilma Smith and her husband.
My mom is in her forties and lives at the Heritage Village Extended Care Facility in Chilliwack (well, Sardis).
She must live there because of the disorder of which she is a victim: she has passed the point where family can care for her at home.
Rella is currently suffering from an undefined neuro-degenerative disorder. Since 1986, she has lost 95% of her motor control and memory, the decline occurred in a kind of logarithmic decay.
Officially diagnosed in 1989 with a strange relative of both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases in 1992, UBC Hospital was unable to define it at all.
My theory, based on sporadic information from "discoveries" in science and my own feelings, is that her decline is due to a lack of sleep. Sleep deprivation is being shown to be related in lower intelligence test scores. My mother was unable to sleep when my father was away on shift work. She lived with 2 hours of sleep--taken intermittently--for repeated periods of three weeks. I believe that research should begin to determine the likelihood that such sustained sleep deprivation of average people causes a "decay" in memory skills or motor coordination.
Before stricken with the neurodegenerative disorder, my mother lived like any of her peers: she raised three kids, she worked for a while in dry cleaning, she worked as a motel maid, she camped with her family, and she played boardgames.
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