It Is All Relative

There is a new resident on the Alzheimer's unit.  Almost everyone who begins living on an Alzheimer's unit experiences a period of adjustment.  Some people sleep, some cry and others are more aggressive.  Mother screamed and hit and tried to get out.  She picked up furniture and threw it and beat at the doors.  Before long, she became more passive with her aggression.  She threw water on the staff and would refuse to bathe.  It was many months before she adjusted. 

What amazes me, is that residents who have lived on the Alzheimer's unit for a while are so tolerant of the behavior of new residents.  This weekend the new lady on the unit was cussing a blue streak.  She waved her glass around at lunch and screamed, "That's my g-- d--- pillow!  Give it back you s-- o- b------!"  Of course there wasn't a pillow in sight, but she ranted on.  Mother just rolled her eyes along with the other residents who are still cognizant enough to know that the woman was ranting.

Mother and I were walking to her room when they wheeled the new resident out of the dining room.  She was still cussing and threw her glass of water on another resident.  She kept screaming, "  Get out of here you g-- d--- s-- o- b------!  Get out!  I am the king, and you have to do what I say you g-- d--- s-- o- b------!"
 Mother said, "She is cussing everyone out."  I told her yes, but that the lady didn't know what she was doing.

"Well," Mother replied," At least I haven't lost my mind."

It was all I could do not to laugh.  I just hugged Mother and thought to myself, it is all relative.  That's the thing about Alzheimer's, the residents all think it is the other person who is crazy.  But maybe there is a lesson in that for all of us.

And Now This

There are all kinds of degradation with Alzheimer's.  Mother faces them daily and is mostly unaware of them.  But sometimes she knows that something is wrong and she is sad.  That is how I found her today.  She was very quiet and would hardly talk as she lay in bed curled up and staring out the window.  I asked if she was ok and she said yes, but as I pressed her she said, "I did something wrong and got in trouble.  They hurt my feelings."  That was all she could tell me, and so we talked about past times.  She laughed and got caught up in the story line making up a plausible story to go along with the real past event.

But now this.  A phone call from the home.  As often is the case, Mother can't remember where her room or her bed is.  She will crawl into any bed she thinks is hers.  I often have to go down the hall checking the beds to find her.  Today she had laid down in her roommates' bed.  The roommate got upset and spanked Mother with a shoe.  Spanked her hard enough to leave a welt on Mother's rear end.  The roommate was moved immediately.  But that is the problem with dementia.  People no longer have control over their actions and responses. 

Mother has been on the giving end of such things, but not to the degree of hurting someone.  She has thrown water on people, verbally threatened others and thrown things.  It just grieves me to know that someone hit her and hit her hard.  It also breaks my heart that she thought she had done something wrong but had no idea what it was.  At some core level she knew life was out of whack, but she couldn't tell me what it was.

I hate this disease and what it does.  The loss of control of ones body and mind is bad enough, but it also causes the victims to lash out and to sometimes become violent.  Now Mother has had to endure a physical attack, and I couldn't protect her from it.  Tomorrow she will not remember it at all, but I will always remember and the bruise will be on my heart for a long time. 

"You Are Bad, Bad, Bad!"

"You are bad, bad, bad!"  That's what mother was saying with her lips pursed while shaking her finger at me.  She was very upset with me, and even yet she can give a good scolding!  Sometimes with Alzheimer's disease it is difficult to distinguish the petulant child from the mother who is unhappy with her child's behavior.  This time it was both.

Mother had a sweatshirt lying on her bed that was not hers.  Checking the tag, I noticed that it belonged to her suite mate.  When I picked up the sweatshirt, Mother started in with "what are you doing - that's my shirt."  Nothing I said would dissuade her.  As I left the room with the sweatshirt to return it, I could hear her scolding me and protesting. She was childlike in her believing something was "hers", but she was also an angry mother whose child was not doing what she wanted her to do. 

It is a fine line to walk sometimes, that line between still being her child, and yet playing the "parent" role of making her floss her teeth, limiting her chocolate, and making her return things that are not hers.  I thought maybe it would be easier to do.  But there is something in that wagging finger and the accusation of "being bad" that still resonates in the back of my mind.  I felt guilty for upsetting her because her belief in her ownership of that shirt was real.  That is the problem with Alzheimer's; one's reality changes.  Sweatshirts or relationships, it all becomes as tangled and scrambled as her mind, and we are all a part of it.