Mom and her delerium

It’s hard dealing with an aging parent…and I never thought it would be easy after dealing with my grandmother who started to really lose her train of thought, short term memory, and desire to do anything.  However…grandma was in her 80’s…I didn’t expect to see my mother turn out this way (only 10 times worse) in just a couple of weeks time at the age of 64.

Sure, we saw the warning signs, but we weren’t really sure what they were.  Every time she’s gone in for surgery on her kidneys (at least 4 or 5 in the past couple of years) she would come out a little less cognitive.  She knew what was going on, but her memory was a bit more shot and her reasoning a bit less realistic. 

Mom has had health problems for years…it’s hard to remember her healthy, and that is depressing in and of itself.  When my folks moved to Florida mom was ALMOST using a walker…and it’s just gone down hill from there.  This was in 2002.  She’d say she was working on getting better, but there wasn’t a lot she could do, she’d reason, because she needed a hip replacement and "couldn’t afford it", "insurance wouldn’t cover enough", "I weigh too much and the doctors don’t want to operate on me because of it", "<insert excuse here>".  She got on disability.  She was obviously having diabetic issues but was seeing a "quack" that told her she wasn’t diabetic (if your leg is black and blue, for a year, don’t you go see a different doctor???).  It was just never ending.

She’s been planning on being healthy for years, literally…these kidney surgeries for infectious stones were supposed to make her quality of life better, but in fact it’s done the reverse. 

She told Chris a few days before she went into the hospital to "just get over it" in regards to the fact that her mother wasn’t speaking to her.  Now we understand more as to why.  My mother has always been hardened, jaded, unhappy (but, my dad will tell you the opposite – he didn’t live with her during the day in the summers and after school…I did), and it’s only been recently that I can honestly ever remember her telling me, to my face, "you know I love you."  She’s been giving me hugs, too – it’s only taken over 25 years for her to get to that point with her only child (she gave me a hug when I moved to Florida in 1994 in the airport, so did my dad…I think that was more shocking than the actual move from Oregon).  My mother has also been one of the cheapest women I’ve ever met.  Stingy to the day she dies, I’ve always thought.  Now she’s proving me wrong in that, as well…sort of.

So…mom’s been going downhill, and it all came to a head 2 weeks ago when my dad called me and said she lost feeling in her left arm, was in pain, and couldn’t stand up on her own.  She was trying to get into the shower from the toilet, and when asked why she said, "I don’t know!"  (she was pretty okay the previous 2 weeks in that she could function and just seemed a little "off", but not crazy…she was getting crazy at night – another sign of dementia).  So…an ambulance came and took her away…after about 5 days in the hospital they deduced she had a horrible yeast AND bladder infection, and put her on meds for both.  Evidently she was on a cycle of injectible antibiotics for the bladder infection – and when they re-tested her late last week, it still wasn’t gone…only part of it was gone.  The good side?  Her legs look better – dad said he hasn’t seen them look this good in years…but, she’s still sick, and she’s still delusional.  We thought it was just the infection, but now looking at the past year we’re realizing it could be more than that…we think it might be Vascular Dementia (look that one up).  If it is, we might not ever see her "normal" again…and we’re in for a long, long haul.

Now we’re at current day.  We went to see mom yesterday at the "re-hab center" (read: nursing home) that she’s at (for 20 days, estimated, as that’s when insurance runs out on it).  She was in therapy and the woman helping her told her she could come and visit with us…mom, of course, wanted to do more as she felt she had to "make up" for some other therapy she evidently didn’t do – and she’s got this fascination with this recumbant bike that she thinks she needs to ride.  They don’t want to put her on that, you can just tell.  I can’t blame them, she can’t lift herself up without assistance…I don’t know how she’d get on that machine.  So, we waited out in the lobby area while she was finishing up, and I could hear her barking orders to the therapist of "tell Tracy to go get my water and cranberry juice and bring those to me and put more ice in both, and get this and that and this and that and this and that."  The therapist told her they’d take care of it when she was done (thankfully the folks there are learning how to deal with her – it’s a learning experience for all of us).

We managed to talk her into going outside, and then two of her friends showed up shortly after.  She was busy telling us all about her upcoming Daytona trip, and who she was going to be staying with first after she got out on Thursday.  She’s evidently, in her head, getting released Thursday…and today she’s going to lunch at Chili’s (with whom, I have no idea, as she’s not allowed to leave the facility).  Thursday she’s going to Daytona with approximately 15 people – she’s meeting them all there at condo’s that SHE has rented.  It was only 7 days when we started about a week and a half ago…then it went to 14, on Friday it was 30, and as of yesterday it was 45.  She’s also buying EVERYONE gift bags…which include a new TV with Blu-Ray player built in, a crock pot, a bunch of clothes with "bling" on them – in your favorite color, mind you, and I think towers of chocolates and some other things.  How is mom paying for this?  "I’m using my next months Social Security check, less the $150 or so I need for prescriptions."  (Per dad, it’s costing them about $500/mo right now for her scrips).  She gets around $900-$1100 (depending on the day you talk to her) from SSI, and she’s buying at least 30 gift bags of all this stuff off of QVC, HSN, etc.  In short, she’s delusional.  It’s interesting, though, to talk to her about it all.

Chris and I will also be partaking in a BookStu

dy (Jehovah’s Witness bible study) but only if my father also joins us, and mom assures us that he will be happy to do so.  :-/  ROFLMAO!

Mom is going to be staying with her friend Adrial, who lives around the corner from me, for at least a week after she "gets out", and her friend Mary (who was there yesterday and just going along with whatever she was saying, smartly), and who knows who else she’s staying with.  She’s going to swim in a pool and stay with her friends and have fun.

I also learned that my mother wants a boyfriend…because she’s a "modern woman", but "only to hold hands and cuddle with, that’s all."  She said that a friend of her’s husband was going to be one of her boyfriends because his wife is "a modern woman and he likes to cuddle."  😕  Okay mom!  She is tired of my father, evidently, her care giver…

Yesterday, she was asking people if they wanted "to be quizzed" when they’d walk by her and she’d tell them that she was giving them a gift bag.  When asked about this she said EVERYONE she talks to is getting a gift bag (hmmmm…interesting twist!).  She talked to some poor woman walking by and she said, "well, before you leave give me a hug" and she was like, "who are you?"  Mom was trying to talk her into going to Daytona with them.  She’s pretty much told everyone at her facility that they need to go to Daytona with her.  Oh, and she’s buying them "the best quality vegetables" she can buy to stock their pantries because evidently she doesn’t think they have enough vegetables.

(typing this out is good…I’m seeing just how strange her mind is working…and it’s helping me, mentally)

Now…all of this would be absolutely fine if it weren’t for her getting so angry and beligerent if you don’t give in to what she wants.  For example, yesterday Chris was wheeling her back in (her request) and she doesn’t have the foot rests on her wheelchair for some reason…so, she’s telling Chris that she HAS TO stop at the office to ask them a question and Chris is telling her that they’re going back to her room and she insists that she stop, but Chris isn’t, so mom puts her feet firmly on the ground and starts yelling at Chris that she has to stop and go into the office.  Chris was afraid she was going to push herself out of her chair, so she obliged.  Mom had to ask the office women if they had a color printer – and if they didn’t did they want one in their gift baskets???  Shortly after this, we’re going by a little area that has ice and juice and stuff in it that the nurses can grab for the residents.  Mom plants her feet on the ground and says, "I have to go in here" and I say, "no you don’t" and she says, in a whiny 5 year old voice, "Yes I Do!  I have to get cranberry juice and I need more ice in this water!"  Fine…I get her more ice, and tell her the nurses will get her some juice.  As soon as I got her back to her room she instantly started telling us she was in pain and needed all this stuff that she left in re-hab and needed to go back and get it all.  In pain, just like that.  She also needed a 100 other things.  She never says "please" or "thank you".  Wait, I take that back, occasionally she does with me, but not with anyone else there…she comes off as very ingrateful.  This is how she was when I was growing up.  Her social abilities have dwindled.

It’s just been so quick that this all has happened that we’re all reeling a bit from it.  No one expects something like this to happen so suddenly to someone.

Dad had decided, as of a couple of days ago, that he’d probably leave her in the facility for the 20 days insurance will cover and then take her out – which would be right after Thanksgiving, unless she shows some improvement.  I’m hoping he sticks with this as we are planning on having him over on turkey day.  We’ve got a smoked turkey to be picked up on Wednesday from our local BBQ joint (Huckleberry’s), I picked up a nice bottle of Bourbon yesterday, and we hope to have a nice, calm meal with him.  Just get to talk and relax…something we could all use.  This might also be his last decent Thanksgiving for awhile (and, come to think of it, his first…all the ones he’s spent with family in the past were with his folks, which was okay but grandma always dried out the bird, and mom doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving).  It’s good to have at least one day a year you can look forward to sitting down and just relaxing with those you love.

I’ll talk to dad today to find out how he faired with visiting her, as I’m sure he’ll go by today since he took yesterday off (one reason I didn’t call him).  After we went to see mom we had to go run errands in Gainesville and also hit traffic so it was a long afternoon.

…guess that’s all for now…just had to vent a bit of that and get my story straight before I forgot it.

-T