s. kalish/key west 2007

Well, so much for escape and diversion. One of my biggest anxieties is that the phone might ring in the middle of the night. I am not sure which is worse: having a nurse call at 3:00 am or my mother; neither is a good sign. Note, this is MY anxiety, it hasn’t happened.

Guilt got me. I hadn’t spoken to my mother in a couple of days and I was beginning to get a strange feeling in my gut two night ago at around 9:00 pm. The phone rang.

It was my mother. This never happens.

Hearing her voice when I answered the phone spread a feeling of doom from my heart to my gut. Trust me, I have this feeling often. The litany of issues spilled through the wire, flooding me, drowning me in despair and worry; here we go again, folks.

I called the social worker, the nurse on the floor and texted the doctor. “Sundowning,” (” When sundowning occurs in a care facility, it may be related to the flurry of activity during staff shift changes or the lack of structured activities in the late afternoon and evening. Staff arriving and leaving may cue some people with Alzheimer’s to want to go home or to check on their children — or other behaviors that were appropriate in the late afternoon in their past. It may help to occupy their time with another activity during that period.”) Although my mother hasn’t been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, this seems to be common in the elderly. Dementia is common in the elderly and it has been creeping up on her slowly, slithering like a snake and invading her space, her thoughts, her reality. And my peace of mind.

I said, “I am no clinician or doctor but I have heard enough about this from medical workers and friends with elderly parents to know that something is going on. It gets worse after dark but can be active during the day, especially when a person isn’t exposed to enough light. I have seen and heard flare-ups, outbursts, I have dealt with her crying aides who she threw out of the apartment, I have experienced first hand, my mother’s strange accusations. There are hallucinations, incidents of paranoia, misinterpretations of sensory input.

My mother claimed that she hadn’t slept in days and if that may be true. But, it had gotten to the point, when she has my ear on the phone (usually close to an hour of complaints about the staff, especially the hospital aides who she says are disrespectful), I am never sure what is real and what isn’t. She claims she has complained to higher ups, to her physical therapist who told his supervisor, that a black man with a nice haircut, in a blue suit, nice enough to be an executive, came in to her room, smiling, to collect the garbage in the middle of the night. That this man was rummaging around in a closet or cleaning a shower or sink and wouldn’t leave. That whenever she rings for a nurse “no one comes,” and this was no exception, that she was terrified and thought she’d be killed or raped. That finally the man left.

Where the truth lies, I don’t know. If this was true, it is horrifying. If not, it is horrifying. The doctor allegedly put my mother on Seroquel which helps her sleep (but as my doctor said, can cause death (!) ) and Aricept, frequently given to Alzheimer’s patients. My mother has never been diagnosed as having dementia, but if the drugs  relieve the symptoms, they are worth it. The symptoms are common in people with macular degeneration and old age. Not being able to see properly contributes to this. I tried to explain this to my mother as best I could without alarming her and she agreed that she was having hallucinations and she knew they were projected images, eg., “people scurrying around” in her apartment.

Now, a long phone call to the nurse’s station indicated that a psychiatrist removed the Arecept so as not to cause more disorientation. The nurse (very nice and on target) was asking about my mother’s behavior and ideations in the past. I am hoping that once she is back in her own environment that she is better oriented. Certainly losing ten more pounds can’t be good; she is now seventy-four pounds. The weight loss to me can only indicate one thing: she is on her way home.

This series starts here:
Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

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