The drama NEVER ends around here.
Sigh. Behind a cut to spare you rambling senility stories as needed.
It's been a big week this week for them, and not in a good way. Marie's broken hip has been pronounced healed by her doctors, and her nursing home stay was scheduled to end this week. Thing is, she's been doing much better physically in the nursing home than she did at home with Alex. She's been eating better and she's well-hydrated, to the point she looks younger because all her wrinkles have filled out. Her mental capacity is limited now, with her memory really spotty and her capability to verbalize pretty well shot as well.
As a result, there was a lot of discussion about putting her into a nursing home permanently. She's at the point you can't leave her alone for any length of time, and with Alex as her only caregiver it's impossible for him to do things like go grocery shopping or manage doctor's visits. So they were looking around for a while late last month and were having issues finding someplace nice that was close by and didn't have issues like psychotic screaming roommates or bad reviews or iffy-looking staff. Alex decided to just bring her home, and we-the-family spent a week moving beds downstairs and generally getting things pulled together to make it easier for Alex to continue to care for her as he wanted to.
Through all of this, Alex was getting more and more depressed. He's a brooding type naturally, and with his memory issues he's getting full-blown paranoia on top of everything else. So he decided since Marie was probably better off in a nursing home, he should commit suicide.
I wish I was making this up.
So on Wednesday, he had gone to visit Marie in the nursing home, and then began acting erratically- walking back and forth between the front door and his car, rummaging around in the back seat of the car frantically, wandering out to and around in the street, etc. When the staff checked on him, he more-or-less admitted he had several plans worked out to kill himself. Yeah, telling that to a med professional equals a quick trip to your closest locked ward for evaluation.
We’re not sure what the plans are/had been, and the odd jumble of stuff in the car was particularly unhelpful (he referred to it as a device... mmmkay, I guess the nail clippers in the paper bag would count). He’s an engineer by training, and has been known to rig up scary stuff in the past, so there may have been something going on there in his mind.
So Alex has been in Regions hospital on a 72 hour psych hold. Nancy came up from Lanesboro and has been frantically arranging stuff. She found a nice nursing home to transfer Marie to. It's hideously expensive, but at least they had a bed open and could take her right away. We may look into moving her to another facility later, but that's a battle for another day. When Alex is released on Friday, Nancy is going to bring him down to Lanesboro for a visit, some time away to get his head together, and some less-depression-fueled planning.
We're going to visit him tonight, and go out for dinner with Nancy afterward.
It's been a big week this week for them, and not in a good way. Marie's broken hip has been pronounced healed by her doctors, and her nursing home stay was scheduled to end this week. Thing is, she's been doing much better physically in the nursing home than she did at home with Alex. She's been eating better and she's well-hydrated, to the point she looks younger because all her wrinkles have filled out. Her mental capacity is limited now, with her memory really spotty and her capability to verbalize pretty well shot as well.
As a result, there was a lot of discussion about putting her into a nursing home permanently. She's at the point you can't leave her alone for any length of time, and with Alex as her only caregiver it's impossible for him to do things like go grocery shopping or manage doctor's visits. So they were looking around for a while late last month and were having issues finding someplace nice that was close by and didn't have issues like psychotic screaming roommates or bad reviews or iffy-looking staff. Alex decided to just bring her home, and we-the-family spent a week moving beds downstairs and generally getting things pulled together to make it easier for Alex to continue to care for her as he wanted to.
Through all of this, Alex was getting more and more depressed. He's a brooding type naturally, and with his memory issues he's getting full-blown paranoia on top of everything else. So he decided since Marie was probably better off in a nursing home, he should commit suicide.
I wish I was making this up.
So on Wednesday, he had gone to visit Marie in the nursing home, and then began acting erratically- walking back and forth between the front door and his car, rummaging around in the back seat of the car frantically, wandering out to and around in the street, etc. When the staff checked on him, he more-or-less admitted he had several plans worked out to kill himself. Yeah, telling that to a med professional equals a quick trip to your closest locked ward for evaluation.
We’re not sure what the plans are/had been, and the odd jumble of stuff in the car was particularly unhelpful (he referred to it as a device... mmmkay, I guess the nail clippers in the paper bag would count). He’s an engineer by training, and has been known to rig up scary stuff in the past, so there may have been something going on there in his mind.
So Alex has been in Regions hospital on a 72 hour psych hold. Nancy came up from Lanesboro and has been frantically arranging stuff. She found a nice nursing home to transfer Marie to. It's hideously expensive, but at least they had a bed open and could take her right away. We may look into moving her to another facility later, but that's a battle for another day. When Alex is released on Friday, Nancy is going to bring him down to Lanesboro for a visit, some time away to get his head together, and some less-depression-fueled planning.
We're going to visit him tonight, and go out for dinner with Nancy afterward.