Thursday, January 31, 2013

Stopped Seroquel, stated Zyprexa and waited on the dentures


Stopped Seroquel, stated Zyprexa and waited on the dentures

On May 7, 20122, the day before Mother’s Day, Kathy sent me a message answering my question about Mom’s dentures.
            “No on the dentures being insured, and Aegis is not responsible for lost items.”
            One of the staff suggested that it would be best to wait to replace them—“until the agitation calms down, hopefully.”
            They cost around $4,000, but a replacement might cost less if he had the mold.
            They stopped the Seroquel as of today, and now Mom was on 2.5 mg. of Zyprexa three times a day and Ativan, 0.5 mg at night for agitation as needed.
            Kathy said the Zyprexa was more sedating and might cause more confusion.

            We would bring ice cream and cake to keep our celebration of Mother’s Day simple.  We’d wait until Mom had had lunch.


Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Lost dentures, missing cops, Kay's resignation from she can't remember what, and Mom's apology for "thieving."


                Between my visits on Tuesday and Thursday, Kathy sent me a message about visiting Mom in the early evening, around 5:45 PM. 
                Mom told Kathy she was glad to see her and was just going to call her to come and take her home. 
                Kathy told Mom she was glad she came even without being called, and for now being at Aegis was best.
                Kathy said there wasn’t too much paranoia just the obsession with her BMs.
                Nan, Mom’s faithful every-Wednesday friend (when Mom was at home) came before Kathy on Wednesday and had a “decent” visit. 
                Kathy thoughtfully mentioned seeing Jonathan’s aunt and uncle featured in the San Francisco Chronicle in an ad for the Sequoias, a retirement home where they were much more content than my sweet mother was at Aegis!


I wrote about Thursday, May 05, 2011, the last time I would see Mom before Mother’s Day. 

Dear Kathy and Suzy,
                When I got there at 10:50, Mom was sleeping, and I sat down in her armchair (not Kay’s!) and started to sleep myself, but then Kay came to the door and Mom woke up. 
                Kay said there were going to be a lot of people, but this time she didn’t say,  “in my room, so get out.” (“I think you should leave now.”)  She said there was a party.  Downstairs.  She told Mom she needed to get up and go with her “Because you know the way.”  (I’m almost certain she wasn’t talking about hell.) 
                Kay was friendly to me this time.  She said, “My, you two look alike,” and then she asked me, “Are you her mother?” 
                I identified myself as her daughter and said I was happy to hear that I was like my mother, and Mom said, “And we both have beautiful teeth” and flashed a smile that wasn’t there after all. 
                “Oh, I don’t have any teeth.  Where are my teeth?” 
                 So we looked and looked, though’ Kay left for the party downstairs without us. 
                Mother seemed sane, the way she had the first few minutes of my visit on Tuesday.  She told me I was lucky that I’d gotten her disposition instead of my dad’s and in a sort of sane way.
                We looked through everything but never found the dentures. 
                I later called Aegis and got someone named Suzette, who said “Oui” instead of yes and in reference to the Perry Section for the Memory Challenged told me Mom was in PaREE, which I think is where Mom would like to be--PaREE, France, though’ today the theme was “I’d like a place that was like this but not so high toned, with people of many different nations but not at the exclusion of  whites.”  No more reference to Aegis’ being for the “lower economic strata.”  (I finally found the missing Visitor’s Book and saw your April 30th entry, Suzy, and Mom’s comment about wishing all the people of the world had the same amount of money.)    Anyway I asked the French-accented concierge about the dentures and begged to be called when they’re found.
 I was there just a little bit more than an hour, and all my time with Mom was in her room, looking through her things for the dentures. 
Close to noon Kay came back and said she’d resigned.  When I asked from what, she said, “I don’t remember.  I know it was a high position.  But when I saw who I’d have to be working with, I thought, ‘No way!’” 
Then Mom, who’d gone back to bed, said, “Kay, I want to tell you how sorry I am because I’ve been thieving from you.” 
Both Kay and I expressed surprise, and Mom asked me, “Isn’t that what I’ve been doing?  I’ve been doing something that hasn’t been good or fair for you.  And I’m so sorry.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me except that I’ve gone mad.” 
Kay just commented again on how much Mom and I look alike (though my teeth were in my mouth),  and she went to lunch, which Mom didn’t want to do, and I didn’t think I should have her eat, toothless,  the sandwich I brought her.
I told Divina and another Aide (it was a bit harder to find aides this morning) to remind them not to let any garbage go out without the denture check, and Divina showed me the box with the glass missing from where she said Mom broke the glass of the fire extinguisher box at 5:00 am this morning.  This was the second offense. 
Mother did say, as we were looking for her dentures, “Do you know what’s ironic?  Just when I need them, the police are going away somewhere.  I saw it in the newspaper.  Look at today’s newspaper, and you’ll see what I mean.” 
Sure enough, there was a headline, “Cop jailed in drug scandal.”   
On my way out of PaRee, I stopped to talk to Carol (another concierge—and isn’t she sweet!) about including Ada on Mother’s Day, and then she asked  Yerba (?) and Sue, who told me about Mom’s breaking the glass “Maybe with her elbow.” 
We talked about the medicine and the possibility that it could be changed. 
“Her hallucinations are terrible,” Yerba said. 
They think that Ada is available for Sunday.  They haven’t heard about any plans with her own family.  So I could bring flowers and cards for both mothers.

                Love,
                Tina

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Breaking Glass and Adding Me to Her Hit List


This was the day that Mom, who’d broken the glass to the emergency fire box, put me on her hit list, and I was partly to blame.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Dear Kathy and Suzy,
                In case you’d like to have a briefer report than the one I usually give, I’ll try to give the essence at the beginning and then you can stop reading if it’s too much!  
                I was with Mom and Ada between 10:50 and 11:40 today—50 minutes, the school (and therapist) hour. 
            When I first arrived, I saw Divina, who smiled and said she’d just given Mom a shower.  Then she added, “But this was a morning of agitation.” 
             She told me Mom had broken a glass.
              “You mean she smashed it at the table?” 
            Then Divina showed me. 
            Mom had broken the glass of the emergency fire extinguisher on the wall, the one that usually says, “Break in case of emergency.”  She’d broken it with her hand. 
            “Fortunately she wasn’t hurt,” Divina told me. 
            The glass had already been replaced. 
            Mom had also screamed for the police. 
            Ada spotted me and asked about going into the room with me, and I told her I thought it was okay (because I think Ada has a good influence/effect on Mom.  In fact, I’d like to invite her to come to our sure-to-be-a-success Mother’s Day luncheon.) 
            I promised to make this beginning short, so I’ll just say that Mom sounded really good and sane at the beginning, then remembered her B.M. obsession, had a little confrontation with Kay (though it was really between Ada and Kay), didn’t want to sit on anything she would get poopy, but made it out to the sitting room to talk to the person (Not Yelba but another Y name) to say that she, Mom, thought she was going crazy….could Y….testify at her trial? 
            Then Mom finally went out to the garden with Ada and me for just a few minutes—long enough to notice the newly planted flowers—maybe chrysanthemums—and to have me read Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee” poem and then order me not to read any more because other people didn’t have love in their life and would be hurt. 
            At one point, she showed me the “spy” equipment, and like an idiot I laughed. 
            She then told me, “Tina, I put you on the list.”  When I asked what list she meant, she said, “To kill!”     
            She and Ada both saw me to the door.
                Okay, that’s the short version.
                After I’d heard about Mom’s breaking the glass with her bare fist, I wondered what shape I would find her in.  She was asleep, and I was going to let her sleep, but she then opened her eyes and talked sanely for a few minutes.  She said she was glad I’d come, and she’d acted crazy, so there were “reverberations.”  She said she felt bad that anyone had to see her like this—us or them. 
            We talked a little bit about the medicine and trying to get it just right, and she made it clear that she would take the medicine because it was what they wanted.  
            She said, “I know I sound pretty crazy, but in here (pointing to her head) and here (pointing to her chest), I have God, but it just isn’t something that other people can see, so they can’t understand.  But I’d never hurt anyone.”
              I told her I knew she wouldn’t. 
             Ada held one of her hands, and I held the other, and when I noticed that Mom’s left eye lid was down again, I asked her about it, and she said, “I keep it down because I think that’s the eye that’s going blind.”  (Might as well pull the shade.)
                I’ve noticed the last two or three times that the visitors’ book is nowhere to be seen. 
            We never got to the point of being able to read Contrary to Popular Opinion, but when Kay came to the door and said, “Lots of people are going to be coming through here to see me today, so you’d better leave,” Mom saw we’d have to leave the room. 
            I suggested the sitting room, but she said Kay’s visitors needed the bedroom AND the sitting room.  Besides, she couldn’t sit on anything she’d get poopy. 
            Mom went to the Y-Woman I mentioned earlier, and the Y-Woman told Mom that if she thought she was crazy, that proved that she wasn’t crazy.  It was only if she thought she wasn’t crazy that she was.  Something reassuring like that. 
             Mom said the police were going to take her away, and that’s what she wanted.  
            “Will you testify for me at the trial?” 
            The Y-person said she would be with Mom 100%--on her side. 
                Then Ada and I convinced Mom to use the bathroom in the hall, right outside 4,3,2,1 # in spite of Mom’s insistence that it was already booked. 
            “There’s a schedule,” Mom said. 
            We went out to the garden, as I mentioned earlier, and as we passed the people in the Assisted Living area, Mom said, “And I can tell you that all of these people will be gone tomorrow.” 
            Mom didn’t want to stay out long because of the B.M. obsession, which I consider more disabling than the fear of being killed or of killing.  It interferes with EVERYTHING! 
            Back in Perry Mom showed me the lines of the wall paper where there were listening-in devices recording what we said, and she also took me to a suite across the hall and said, “This is where they keep information about me.” 
            She told me that someone had said the worse thing they could.  “Your daughters are coming to see you, so that must make you feel good.”  Mother made a face indicating the insensitivity of the aide’s saying such a thing within the earshot of the less fortunate.  And everything is within earshot of everyone.  Mom said she didn’t want to have any more visitors until she got home. 
             I told her I’d be back on Thursday, and Nan would be there tomorrow, but Mom expressed exasperation. 
            “I’m very fond of Nan, but it’s not fair to the people here to be punished, and it’s not good for you to see me like this.”  Or something to that effect. 
              I kissed her goodbye, and Ada asked her whether it would be okay for her to come back in a couple of days, and then I walked out, but then Mom came out to let me know that she’d put me on her hit list so they’d see it and call me, and then the police would come and take her away.
                I think there may be some hope of our having a Mother’s Day luncheon if Ada joins us.  Do we know yet whether Karl can come?  He hasn’t answered my message.  Javier is coming.  Since Mom “behaves” herself more with Ada, it may work with her and Javier there.  If Karl can make it, his presence might be a positive force too. 
                I wonder how much longer we have to test out this increased dosage of Seroquel before we put her on something else.  I’m not sure that’s the culprit, but it doesn’t seem to be making things any better!                
              Love,                 
             Tina   
             PS  How was the special on Alzheimer’s? 



I don't think this is the kind of community-provided bench the SF Chronicle was talking about today in its article https://www.sfchronic...