I can’t seem to win in this relationship. Seems that whatever I do is wrong – which is so very frustrating to me. Actually there are no winners here…. and when I’m not feeling sorry for myself, I see that.
Our “issue du jour” this week is medication. One of the things I expect to see in Alzheimer’s is a slowing down of how much she eats, and what she eats. It’s mostly soft food now. She can no longer manage a pizza crust or a tough piece of meat. Things have to be cut up finely. I thought she might be having a hard time swallowing her pills, as I was finding them places, even when I made her open her mouth to show me she had swallowed them. Turns out, she was spitting them out because she things I’m poisoning her. Que the above texts from her home care aide. Every night, after she asks me if she’s dying, she asks me if I’m poisoning her. Every night I give her a different answer – some version of “Of course not!” “Why would I try to poison you?” “Mom what a ridiculous question.” Flashback to years of therapy with my daughter, who has Asperger’s. As a little girl, she would ask me regularly, several times a day, “Mom, do you love me?” So, tiring of the question and trying to be creative, I answered it differently each time: “Of course I do!” “I love you to the moon and back.” “I love you mucho!” etc. Then her counselor told me that if the answer is different every time she asks, in her mind, that means that at some point, the answer could be ‘no’. Wow. What revelation. Makes so much sense. Her anxiety was through the roof, but diminished significantly when I began answering every time, with a simple ‘yes.’ Mom, do you love me? “Yes.”
I’ve mentioned before that I think the Alzheimer’s brain is similar to the Asperger’s brain in some ways. So I started doing the same with mom, and answering ‘no’ when she asks if I’m poisoning her. “Are you trying to poison me?” No. And I move on. Fingers crossed that it will help.
Next up in the medication battle – the ‘pills-in-the-pudding’ method. She loves pudding, and I mean loves it, so I thought that might be a successful way to get her to take her meds. So I take a spoonful of pudding, tuck the pills into it so they are not visible. She’s like a little bird with her mouth wide open when she sees me coming with the spoonful of pudding. Turns out, she was still able to hide them under her tongue and spit them out. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! LOL… So – I bought a pill crusher this weekend. I pulverized those babies till they were pure powder (which, truth be told, was actually a bit therapeutic for me). I think it worked! There’s no way to spit out powder. I do believe I’m the winner of round 3 of the pill saga!
Mom’s paranoia is also getting worse ~ another ugly side of Alzheimer’s. Not just the pills; it’s every scenario, every conversation. And she has FOMO. I’m not up on all the texting lingo that young people use, but I do know FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out. If she thinks she’s missing anything, a piece of candy, a phone call, etc she comes charging out of her room to look. 90% of the time it’s nothing, but she’s afraid we’ll eat dinner without her, or do something fun without her, to which I always say “Mom, have you ever missed a meal here? Have we ever had dinner without you?” Mom goes to bed around 9:30. We have a routine, and she’s down for the night. Supposedly. I like to have an hour to myself before I go to bed, because I just need space from her. So when I announce it’s time for bed, she says “are you going to bed too?” Of course I lie and say yes….. I did that when my kids were little too. Once I think she is out for the night, I turn the tv on low hoping not to wake her. If she hears it, she comes out of her room and peaks around the corner. Fortunately I can turn off the tv and light quicker than she can get out of bed, so when she peaks around the corner, I play possum, close my eyes, but squinting through one eye, I can see her peek at the tv and at me, and then say “huh” and goes back to bed. Then I turn the tv back on. FOMO. It’s out nightly song and dance.
The other night she was mad at me for making her eat her dinner before having her dessert. She pouted all evening. When she was going to bed she said “tomorrow I’d like the name and number of a good lawyer.” I laughed out loud. I can’t win. She’s going to sue me for not giving her dessert till after dinner! Sheesh….
So the reality is, this is a winless situation for both of us. She lost when she dew the straw of Alzheimer’s. I lost, on some level, when I became a caregiver and invited her into my home. The thing is, I don’t see how either of us win in this scenario. So we plug along, each of us winning an occasional battle, but both of us losing the war.
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