As you know from previous blogs, my mother had an altercation with an aide and was pushed and fell. At this time I do not have the results of the X-Ray. I have spoken to the police precinct and a report can be filed at any time. They need as much information as possible.

I do not know what precipitated this behavior on the aide’s part; I assume my mother said something that ticked her off and she lost it. Really lost it. I do believe that this event happened. I heard my mother recount the story and many things that led to it:
she claims that the aide was proselytizing her to convert, that the aide said she wouldn’t go to heaven, that the aide said she would go down a black hole. That the aide was not doing her job properly, not washing the dishes well, leaving garbage on the floor (and that another aide was her witness but wouldn’t tell).

On Saturday afternoon after the first, regular aide left at 4:00 PM as usual, my mother called me. I had nodded off into a semi-nap but that didn’t seem to bother her, it was non-stop talk. And, it was disturbing. It was indicative of what happens to some elderly: paranoia. Poor reality testing.

She decided that she didn’t want to press charges as it might lead to an altercation. I said, “if the X-Ray results indicate a break of sorts, I am pressing charges.” she agreed. And then a bit later seemed to have forgotten that we spoke about that. I told her she likely would know until (today) Monday.

But here’s the thing: I am wondering if I was swept into a storm of illusion.

She said that on a recent visit to her regular doctor, (not the partner she saw when I was with her on Wednesday.)  He looked at my hair. He asked about how he should wear his hair, that he likes MY hair. He was staring at my bracelet and said, “if you sin you go into the black hole.” (have we heard this before??)

She said, “I said, ‘don’t you ever talk to me like that or you will not have any more patients!’ and I raised my voice so that the whole office would hear!”

“Mom,” I said, exhausted and overwhelmed, ” YOU told ME that the aide said the stuff about going into the black hole, now you are telling me the doctor said that, too!!?”

She denied that the aide said that, it WAS the doctor, she insisted. He was trying to tell me HE wanted my gold bracelet, and that I didn’t deserve it because I sinned. He was jealous! “Everyone knows that Dr. B. is not a man, but really a woman.”

And then I began to feel really ill, spun around, as she went on about Anti-Semitism in her residence, how she wished she didn’t have to live there. “Mom, you are in your own place, this is your apartment. If you were to go into a “facility” they would take all of your money and you’d have no privacy. There is no guarantee that the help would be any better.”

“I would die in a nursing home,” my 101 year old mother said for the 101st time. I don’t want to move.”

Each time I ask her what she would like me to do, she has no response.

After that anecdote about her regular doctor and that “black hole comment,” I was zapped back to the way things are: sometimes she is cogent and on target and other times she is in another world, HER world of distortion, through the looking glass, the glass that reflects back to her that men are still attracted to her, that she is still beautiful and worthy of all that she has. That she knows EVERYTHING. That she is BRILLIANT and can stand up for herself. That she does no one any harm. Sometimes she is the mother. Sometimes she calls me her mother and she is “the daughter.” The lines and roles are so blurred, the facts are so blurred and possibly distorted that I am as spun around as she is.

While she rants and raves I get agitated, I get angry, irritated, annoyed. Where is my mother?

Addendum: spoke to a doctor in the practice about X-Ray results: nothing was broken. She obviously has a bruise. CT scan is needed. I am not pushing it. I don’t believe she will go ahead with charges.

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

The previous post is here
The incident begins here

The next post is here