Leaving the Ship

There is a new woman at the home.  She is in the first stage of adjusting to living in a nursing home.  She is confused, and she wants to leave.  She is wandering the halls asking everyone if she is "free to leave the ship."  Another resident replies," This isn't a ship.  This is a building.  Your folks put you here, and you have to stay until they come and take you out."  The woman looks blank and wanders toward the end of the hall and rattles and shakes the door saying, "I have to get out of here."

I remember that stage well.  Mother was more angry than the new woman.  Not only did she rattle the door, she picked up chairs and threw them.  She tried to break the glass.  In the first place she lived, she tried to climb the fence in the outside area.  She pulled a patio table to the fence, climbed on it and tried her best to get over the wrought iron fence.  Thank goodness Mother was too short to do so.  When she first arrived where she now lives, she did the same thing.  She couldn't climb over an outside wall, but she tried to climb over a wall in her unit that doesn't quite go to the ceiling and adjoins the main dinning room.  She stood on the sofa and tried her best to climb the wall desperate to escape.

At first, we tried to take Mother out of the home for short drives.  We thought it would ease her transition. She got so confused when we did.  Once she thought she was Vietnam.  Often she thought she knew the people in every car that passed us and it would upset her. Sometimes she thought we were in a different town.  Finally a nurse told us we were not doing her any favors.  It was easier on her to just stay in the home.  It was less confusing.  In our own way, we were denying that she was on that ship that only sailed farther and farther away from normal life.

No is "free to leave the ship" once they are in the Alzheimer's unit.  It simply sails off into the fog.  No amount of beating on doors or throwing furniture  or climbing walls can facilitate an escape.  And no matter how much we want to, even the "folks" can get you out. It is a one way trip.