Mother is 85 today.  She has never had a stroke, has never had cancer, and has never had a heart attack.  She remains, in spite of very serious mobility problems that confine her to a wheelchair, in remarkably good health.
Her problems with delusions have even gone away, thanks to an evaluation by a psychologist who suggested some major changes in her medication.  She still occasionally imagines that she did certain things that never really happened, but she no longer sees strange people in the room nor snakes and ducks as she was for two or three months. 
Her short term memory is not the best--unless it is something she specifically wants to remember--but her long term memory remains good.  She has no trouble remembering who we all are as well as keeping track of where we fit into her life.

I'm afraid too many years of her criticizing, not trusting, and demanding more of me than there was to give, have forever altered my perception of Mother.

It continued even after she was in the nursing home before she began to realize that I was not going to come visit. Even when I was still recovering from chemo, which left me phyically and mentally fragile, she would start in criiticizing when I visited. I have walked out many times shortly after arriving because I had made up my mind that no one was going to stress me during the time that I was fighting so hard to be sure I remained strong mentally in my battle with cancer.

Though she now is just happy to see me when I come, I still dread every visit with her and have to force myself to go to the nursing home.

It is not that I don't love her because I do; I just will never be able really to enjoy being with her because of our history. The ironic thing is that no matter how many times in the past I tried to explain to her why I had these feelings, she could never see that she had ever done anything to justify them.

Then, the very next time I would see her, she would berate me again over something. As one of my aunts told my daughter, "I wish Joan would go see her mother more, but I understand why she doesn't. She's on her all the time about something when she does visit."

I guess it's all in how we perceive things.