MY LOCO GRANDMA
Grandma is constantly wanting to go somewhere. Normally this is not a problem because I can usually take here somewhere and she is happy. However, occasionally I need to hang around the house. During the day this is alright but closer to evening she begins to pace and say that she wants to go home. If she is not receiving enough attention she will even try and leave the house. To cope with this sometimes I will walk with her around the block. Sometimes I have walk with her four or five times before she tires enough and calms down a little. Normally she doesn’t like the dark and thus doesn’t try and leave the house at the night. So I felt it was alright to sleep in my room as long as I left the door open. Grandma gets up pretty regularly at night to go the bathroom six or seven times and will peak in and see who is in this room and then go back to bed. Well one night while I was sleeping in my room she managed to get out and wander over to some neighbor’s house. I guess the neighbor had an idea that she lived in this house and brought her back. I awoke to hear women’s voices. I new one was grandmas and assumed the other was my mothers. I guessed that grandma was giving my mom some problems so I went to try and help. I walked out and discovered that it was a neighbor bringing grandma back. I felt really embarrassed because I was in my boxers and an undershirt. I did not have my contacts in so I still do not know who it was. I said, “thank you” and as politely as I could tried to show the woman to the door. After that incident I started sleeping on the couch. I also suggested we get a new lock on the door that could be locked with a key from the inside. My mom said no she wanted a new door first. Sleeping on the couch worked relatively well. Whenever Grandma tried to make a break for it at night I awoke in time to stop her. However, one morning I awoke and needed to take a shower so I moved Skyler to the couch so he could listen for Grandma. When I got out of the shower and dressed. I went to check on Grandma. Panic!!! She was gone and Skyler was asleep. So I woke him and we raced out to look for. She was no where in site. I jumped in my truck and Skyler got on his bike to search. After looking for a while I made my way to the corner gas station. There were a couple of cop cars there. Grandma was babbling incoherently to a couple of puzzled cops. I explain she had Alzheimer’s and she had gotten out. They wanted me to show them my DL which as luck would have it I had left had home because I had been in a bit of a rush. So dug threw my glove compartment and found my insurance card. They accepted this. I don’t think they really wanted to deal with grandma anymore. The officers suggested getting one of those latching locks and sticking it at the top of the door out of grandmas reach. As soon as I was done with them I took grandma and got a lock to put on the door. I did not want to go through that ever again. Grandma has been able to undo this lock by getting a chair but she makes a great deal of noise and it does slow her down considerably.