Undies

I stopped at Atria on the way home and that is always a downer.  In case you hadn't heard this, she's old.  That's why she doesn't do anything.  At one point she sighed and said "you don't know how lonely it is to have to eat by yourself."  I mentioned the hundred other people in the dining room and the three other women she eats with, but that doesn't count, I guess.  She laid a guilt trip on me for her loneliness and I'm afraid I just couldn't handle it.  I wasn't very nice, then she gets sad.  My only consolation is that she will have forgotten that by now.

I picked up her laundry.  I washed all of her underwear less than a week ago and there must be at least 15 or more pairs ready to be washed 5-6 days later.  She swears she only wears one pair a day, but I think that statement, like the one about her never going to meals (which Atria records show is not true) is a product of her imagination, not a fact.  I bought her 3 new pairs of underpants, which I brought to her today and she managed to lose them before I left.  Then she swore I never gave her any underpants.  I wanted to cry in frustration, but I just took the dirty undies home with me.

Family Drama

Well.  No cleaning got done today.  None.

The day started at 7:30 with a phone call from my mother, in great distress.  She felt terrible and she just didn't know what to do.  I told her I would be right over.

She answered the door, but staggered trying to get back to bed.  She kept slapping her arm and saying "stupid, stupid, stupid" because she didn't know how not to feel the way she was feeling and felt it was her fault for not being able to feel better.  She told me she hadn't eaten in 2 days and that she felt like she had nausea all over her body.  She also told me that she "tried to walk and would find herself on the floor."  I don't know if she has fallen or not...you just never know which of her stories are accurate and which are things she remember, but never really happened.

I went to call the advice nurse at Kaiser.  During the twenty minutes I was on hold (the pre-screener told me that average wait time was 15 minutes but in this case it would probably be less time.  Yeah.  Right.) my mother staggered into the living room, hanging onto wall furniture to keep from falling over.

She sat in her chair for awhile, head in her hands moaning, then moved to the couch, she lay down, again slapping herself and calling herself stupid-stupid-stupid.

I finally got the advice nurse and she ran through all the possible symptoms for stroke and other obvious things.  She talked with my mother, who could speak clearly, but feebly and couldn't answer all the questions.  We decided she should see the doctor and made an appointment for the afternoon, but said she'd try to get her in in the morning and would call me if she was able to.

 

Then I went to the Atria front desk to check their records and miss "haven't eaten in 2 days" had 3 meals yesterday, which was nice to know.  I went to the dining room and got her a piece of dry toast and a cup of coffee.  She sat up to eat and it was like she was back to normal again.

My phone battery was running down, so since my mother seemed fine, I went home to recharge the battery so I wouldn't miss the doctor's call.  Good thing I did because the doctor called on the house phone, not my cell phone.  We changed the appointment to 11 a.m.

I went back to Atria and she was sleeping on the couch.  I let her sleep until she woke up and when she did she was disoriented and "sick" again.  But the one thing she was adamant about was that she did NOT want to see a doctor.  Maybe we could go tomorrow when she was feeling better.  I finally asked "do you like the way you feel now?"  That seemed to convince her to let me take her to the doctor.

The exam went exactly as I knew it would: She tells the doctor she's great, everything checks out fine.  She isn't dizzy.  She doesn't remember falling down.  She isn't nauseous, etc.  We went and had labs drawn. I told the doctor that my non-professional diagnosis was that there was an anxiety component to all of this. I think she woke up not feeling well and not sure what she should do about it, and that made her anxious so she called me and it escalated from there.  When I took charge and got on the phone with the advice nurse it took the onus off of her for "doing something."

I think if there is anything good that is happening with all these "I'm fine; she's just exaggerating" meetings is that Kaiser is finally beginning to realize that you can't trust what she says. (Today she could not remember her last name and had to ask me.) Never ask her a "when" question because she'll just make up an arbitrary date, and people will believe her. I never did believe that she hadn't eaten in 2 days and am so grateful that Atria keeps records on that!

While we were waiting for labs, I kept thinking what she really needed is to go to a nice lunch.  But she gets confused in the atmosphere of a restaurant.  She hates the noise of crowds because she can't understand what's being said and the last time we went to a restaurant she ended up so agitated that I realized it really isn't a treat for her to be taken out to lunch. I tried to think of a place where I would take her that she would like.

Then I came up with the perfect idea:  Osteria Fasulo, a little Italian restaurant out in Village Homes, which is like being on an estate of a big mansion -- lots of gardens with trees (she loves trees) and flowers.  They have an indoor eating area, but I asked for the patio.  The weather was perfect, warm and slightly breezy, and there were almost no people on the patio, so it was like having the place to ourselves.  From where she sat, under a grape arbor, she could look out across the grass to an eye-blindingly beautiful iris garden.

The birds flew in and around the arbor and she just loved looking at all the beautiful trees.

That coral rose bush was right next to our table and when the breeze blew the air was filled with the fragrance of the roses...a scent you get so seldom from hothouse flowers.

I didn't give her much chance to look at the menu because that always confuses her.  I told her I was having braised romaine with Dungeness crab and she decided that sounded good to her.  The woman who looks at every plate and complains that it's too much, actually ate more than I did and loved it.  She cleaned her plate; I did not.

When asked if she wanted to look at the dessert menu, she gave a hearty "SURE!" so we both had a lovely creme brulee.

By the time we had finished our lunch, you'd never know she had ever been sick.  In fact, she had forgotten she had been to the doctor.  She was bright and chipper and raving about what a lovely afternoon we'd had.  When I dropped her back at Atria, where she usually gets out kind of dazed saying that she isn't sure she can find her apartment, she was sure-footed and didn't complain at all about fear of finding her apartment.

The downside was that it cost nearly $100 and we had the cheaper things on the menu! I need to find something similar...or MAKE something similar where she doesn't have to walk (which her back pain prevents her from doing--and she refuses to use cane or wheelchair), but can commune with nature and not have an expensive meal in the bargain, but I can bring a picnic lunch.

But then, since her moods flip flop more often than a politician, who knows if a return visit would be as positive, You can only take her day by day, sometimes only hour by hour. But right now I'm feeling pretty good about how the day went, even if it DID take 7 hours!

TOMORROW I'll get back to cleaning.

Photos

I came across one of her photo albums yesterday and transferred about 50 pictures into a little 4x6 size album, one picture per page.  What a great idea.  She looked through it and then again and then again.  She must have looked through it 6 times, each time seeing it as something new.  There is one picture of her and Fred in there that apparently she doesn't like and each time she pointed to it and said she didn't like it.

I also included a picture of the mobile home and pictures of the living room and den and the first two times through she would stop at that picture and ask what it was.  The third time shes looked at it and said "I think I lived here once."

The funniest thing, though, was that the very last picture I included was the one I took of her with Jeri last week.  She had been commenting on how young everyone looked and how old they are now and when she came to that picture she said "she still looks the same, though."

Anyway, it was a great idea and actually kept her busy for half an hour!

Visit with Jeri

I notice that noise is starting to be a problem for her.  She always is very irritated in the dining room because everyone is talking.  I ask her if she thought they should sit there silently and says says, "well...YES!"

We spent time with her with Jeri after lunch and at one point she called out "Will you please STOP TALKING so I can understand you."  Jeri talks very fast and I think her constant patter, which I thought would be good for my mother, was just too much for her.

It's difficult to remember what is "too much" for her any more.

Jeri said that frustrating thing about her is that she mostly talks about how she never sees her any more, when Jeri is sitting right there in front of her

And her hair.  My god her hair.  Jeri now has short hair for the first time in her life and every time my mother looked away from her and then looked back again, it was as if she was seeing her for the first time.  I can't remember how many times she asked "when did you get your hair cut?"  Sometimes she likes it, sometimes she hates it, one time she said she didn't want to be seen in public with her, another time she thought it was cute.

Her Main Problem

I told my mother that her problem is that she looks and acts so well, nobody believes she is 97 years old!  97! Five years older than Nancy Reagan, But she stands straight, has all of her teeth, walks without assistance.  Yes, she has lines on her face, but not all that many.

And that's her problem.  I expect her to act the way she looks even though I know she is almost 100 and I probably should make more allowances for her than I do.

My visit with her on Tuesday was brief, 30 min vs. the hour I usually spend, because I as on my way to the hospital to work.  But it was one of her "distracted" days.  She really didn't seem interested in anything and even the things she says all the time were kind of like playing a record, not with any feeling behind them.  Again she asks who those cute little girls are in the picture on her cabinet.  She never, ever remembers who they are. I tried to let her know "what I've been doing that's exciting," which she wants to know every time but she never listened, just looked out the window or at her fingernails and asked me what I've been doing that's exciting.  She's always had perfectly manicured nails and Tuesday she had taken off some of the polish on some of her nails and just kept looking at them and picking at them and complaining that she had no nail polish (which she does...she often puts polish on her nails while we talk).  Even news of Jeri's impending visit didn't seem to excite her much.  She just sighed and said "well, it will be nice to see the kids..."  Usually Jeri's impending visits are the one things that makes her sparkle.

But she's 97 and she's in surprisingly good condition for someone who's 97.  I need to keep remembering that.

Email from Jeri

"I talked to Grandma the other night.  It was the first time I was alarmed by her confusion.  She talked to me super-brightly, bland making-conversation... "where do you live these days?  Are you happy?  Do you have a boyfriend?"  There's usually a moment of confusion and then a moment when it clicks into place who I am and what my general bio is... this time it just took a lot longer to get to that point."

Return to Hannah

This was another day I had looked forward to which didn't quite work out the way I expected.  My mother's hair has been looking just horrible and she is overdue for a permanent.  The woman who does hair at Atria just doesn't do her hair right.  The last two times she had a permanent, she came out looking like a q-tip.  I decided to call her old hairdresser in San Rafael.  She went to Hannah every week for some 30 years until she moved to Davis.  In fact, the very last thing she did on her last day at her old home was to have Hannah do her hair (my ploy to get her out of the house while the rest of the family cleaned it out without her interference.)

Before I made the appointment, I asked my mother if she'd like to go and she said that yes, it would be fun to see Hannah again. After I made the appointment, I told my mother that she had an appointment and she was pleased and said again how much fun it would be to see Hannah again. I wrote it on her calendar and reminded her it was there.  I told her two days ago, when I left, that I would be back on Wednesday to take her to Hannah. 

I decided to go early and bring along a small lunch, since she wouldn't have time for lunch in the dining room and there is a beautiful lagoon near Hannah's house and I thought we could eat there.  Knowing she doesn't eat much, I made a small cottage cheese and peach salad and bought a pastry and packed all in my new insulated bag, replacing the one I left behind on the bus bench last week.

When I got to her apartment, she wasn't there.  I went looking for her and found her in a corner near the dining room with a cup of coffee and 2 cookies.  Breakfast.  I said I had come to take her to see Hannah and get a permanent.  She grabbed her hair and wailed "do I have to???"  I'm afraid I wasn't very nice about it. She can't help it but I don't know how else to help her.  I could have called her from the Atria parking lot to remind her and by the time I got to the apartment she would have forgotten.

We argued, she withdrew. Said she thought she was all set for today because she knew what she had to do and now I'm telling her she's supposed to do something else (interesting because she tells me EVERY DAY that she knows she's supposed to be doing something but doesn't know what it is.)

But she reluctantly agreed to go and then kept a stoic silence for the first 20 minutes or so, by which time she forgot where we were going and why--and that she was angry with me for making her go, so the rest of the trip was answering those questions.  We were so late leaving Davis that we barely got to Hannah's in time and had no time for the lunch by the lagoon I had packed. 

[Aside:  her pill container has disappeared.  I asked her about it and she doesn't remember having one for the past 3 years.  I planned to look in garbage cans when we got back to Atria after returning from San Rafael]

When she got out of the car at Hannah's, she took off her jacket and left it on the front seat.

When her hair got all brushed out, I could see why I was willing do drive so far to have Hannah do it  She looked like a different person. 

When she looked at herself in the mirror she seemed surprised and asked "who did that?"  Hannah told her that she had done it.  When we got in the car, she picked up the jacket she had left and asked whose jacket it was.

The ride home was interminable because of endless backups because of rush hour traffic  She was very anxious if I got too close to a car in front of me, one time yelling out because she thought the car in front was backing up.  She kept asking what was making the traffic so slow.  Over and over and over again for about 3 hours.

I put on my playlist of music from the 40s, which has always calmed her down and she always sings all the words to all the songs, but I think it was entirely too distracting for her today.  She sang a couple of songs in spots where the traffic was not bad, but mostly she seemed irritated by the noise.

By the time we got to Atria, every bone in my body ached and I just let her out so I could drive home.  I decided I would leave the medicine search for tomorrow.  She was upset that I wasn't coming in and asked how she would find where she was supposed to go.  I suggested she head for the apartment she has been going to every day for the past 3 years.  As I drove off, feeling guilty, she was standing in the lobby looking around, trying to remember where she was.  I came home and took two Tums to quiet the heartburn that had been building up during the long ride.

A very long day and lots of frustration and biting of my tongue, but in the end, definitely worth it.

Other than a few kinks, the day went all right.  I think the visit with an old friend --whose name she knows!-- was a great tonic for her as well.