Another night in crazy town...
Was up til 2 am with Grandma last night. She was wound up tight as a top, popping out of bed every half hour, creaking and shuffling into the hall to make sure I was safe, and to try to convince me that we needed to escape, that we had to get out of here, the night watchman was coming and if he found us in the factory we'd be in big trouble. It doesn't help that when she enters this paranoid fantasy land, she takes on this creepy little girl voice, which, coming from the toothless mouth of a 92 year old woman, sends waves of chills up and down my spine.
Now, I know its a hopeless excercise in futility to try to reason with an Alzthiemers and dementia patient. I know this. But I still catch myself trying. She's off in some twisted childhood nightmare and I'm calmly trying to get her to acknowledge that if we really were in some abandoned warehouse it probably wouldn't have baby blue walls with pictures of her children and a big comfy bed with flannel sheets and a down comforter that has kittens on it. No dice. I realize that I'm probably taking this position simply to ensure my own tentative sanity in a really wierd and unsettling situation. It frightens me to imagine that someday even logic might fail me, so I am determined to make the most of it while I still have all (well, most) of my faculties.
I wish I understood why these episodes always take place in the middle of the night. Is it that she wakes up for a split second and the disorientation sends her over the edge? There must be some way, short of drugging the hell out of her (a possibility I am slowly but surely beginning to consider, out of sheer desperation), to keep this from happening. It is exhausting, for everyone. Finally I just gave her a bunch of valerian and climbed into the bed with her and got her to talk about my Grandpa until she really, truly, snoringly fell asleep. This morning her head is back on relatively straight, but she's bone tired and knows something isn't right, and I'm cranky as hell, after expending so much energy trying to be calm and comforting and very very very patient for three hours in the middle of the goddamn night. It isn't her fault. I know sometimes her other caregiver loses track of that and treats her unfairly. Its fortunate that she never remembers what happens when she wakes up.
I won't be having children, so if I am ever diagnosed with alzthiemer's, I'm going to stage some kind of bizzare and transcendent suicide. Something really splendid and beautiful. I refuse to put myself and my family through this, not even for the sake of the sweet moments in between the madness.
Now, I know its a hopeless excercise in futility to try to reason with an Alzthiemers and dementia patient. I know this. But I still catch myself trying. She's off in some twisted childhood nightmare and I'm calmly trying to get her to acknowledge that if we really were in some abandoned warehouse it probably wouldn't have baby blue walls with pictures of her children and a big comfy bed with flannel sheets and a down comforter that has kittens on it. No dice. I realize that I'm probably taking this position simply to ensure my own tentative sanity in a really wierd and unsettling situation. It frightens me to imagine that someday even logic might fail me, so I am determined to make the most of it while I still have all (well, most) of my faculties.
I wish I understood why these episodes always take place in the middle of the night. Is it that she wakes up for a split second and the disorientation sends her over the edge? There must be some way, short of drugging the hell out of her (a possibility I am slowly but surely beginning to consider, out of sheer desperation), to keep this from happening. It is exhausting, for everyone. Finally I just gave her a bunch of valerian and climbed into the bed with her and got her to talk about my Grandpa until she really, truly, snoringly fell asleep. This morning her head is back on relatively straight, but she's bone tired and knows something isn't right, and I'm cranky as hell, after expending so much energy trying to be calm and comforting and very very very patient for three hours in the middle of the goddamn night. It isn't her fault. I know sometimes her other caregiver loses track of that and treats her unfairly. Its fortunate that she never remembers what happens when she wakes up.
I won't be having children, so if I am ever diagnosed with alzthiemer's, I'm going to stage some kind of bizzare and transcendent suicide. Something really splendid and beautiful. I refuse to put myself and my family through this, not even for the sake of the sweet moments in between the madness.