Journey Through Dementia

Journey Through Dementia

Monday, June 20, 2016

The Pill Battle


Early in the day, I had stopped by Atria to deliver a gorgeous basket of red carnations I had found at Michael's for my mother.  They look so real and they won't die on her, which is always a plus.  She was unintentionally funny today and though on the one hand it was sad, on the other hand, I couldn't help but laugh at what happened.

I found her sitting in the hall outside the dining room, where the men--fathers and their grown up sons--were stopping by a big bin of bow ties, gift for all the fathers going to lunch.  "I'm getting too old and I don't know what's going on any more," she said, as I explained to her more than once that it was Father's Day and the ties were for all the Dads.

After awhile we went to her apartment.  I had her pills for next week to leave for her and I was fairly certain that if I left her sitting in the hall, she would not remember to take the flowers with her when she went back to her apartment.  And I was right, because even when I reminded her to take them, her reaction was "Oh?  Are those for me?"

We got to the apartment and I went to put her pills in the bathroom, where I always leave them.  I saw that the previous week's pill box still had two days' worth of pills in it.  It had been 3 days since I was last there and when I was there, there were two days' worth of pills not yet taken, so she hasn't been taking her pills.

I confronted her with it (which is always pointless, but somehow I need to do it).  "There are two days worth of pills in there so I know you haven't been taking your pills," I said.

She got defensive and then said "OK...I'll take one NOW."

She got herself a glass of water, and two cookies and went to sit down and dutifully eat her cookies.  I got her pills and handed them to her.  "What are those?" she asked, and then said "Oh...do I take pills?"

I'm going to have to monitor her more closely to make sure she is taking the pills, which means going to Atria more often.  But I had to admit that I got a good chuckle out of her thinking that she was doing what she was supposed to do by eating two cookies with her glass of water.

No comments:

Post a Comment