Ups and downs
With three good, easy days in a row, I should have known there would be a bad day. At least it wasn’t *on* Christmas, so that’s something!
Given that my grandmother had *zero* interest in going back to her room after lunch unlike every other day so far, I should have realized something was up. She went back & forth with knowing who we were (that doesn’t bother me at all - maybe it should, but it doesn’t) - unfortunately she realized it was us (or my parents) just enough to get all spooled up about paying for dinner, money, her checkbook, her wallet, etc, etc, etc. All the things she doesn’t worry about when her brain has decided to happily park itself circa 1978, or what she worried about 24/7 for the past 3 years before hitting the care center. Yay family time?
Seems the lunchtime Xanax didn’t kick in today, and our presence threw things into just enough disarray in her mind to make things that much worse. The memory resets and the repeated questions aren’t fun, but I can deal with them. The anxiety? Not so much - just kills me every time.
Attempting to make a graceful exit was a bit of a challenge - especially when you know that YOU are the cause of the anxiety, but leaving could also cause MORE anxiety… This is where the care center is a godsend. We could tell my grandmother that we needed to go run some errands, warn Andrea (her CNA) about how wound up she’d gotten thanks to our presence, and head on out knowing that dinner would be in a hour (a good distraction for her) and Xanax (thank god for pharmaceuticals) and then bed around 7:30 - and she has multiple people around her to reassure her that it isn’t the end of the world. Fortunately, Andrea says she doesn’t have days like this terribly often (thankyoujesus) and everyone knows the “right” answers to queries about checkbooks and wallets and such.
As Donald pointed out, if it wasn’t for the care center, she’d be up and worrying herself sick until 2AM - and we’d get the brunt of it. These people are saints.
Originally posted at CafeChatNoir.net.
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