Call from Rosewood

I got a call on Friday night from the Rosewood House Supervisor, JoAnn Hankins. The nursing staff went to her with their concerns about Mom's behavior. She thought I was still the POA.

Apparently Mom came to get Dad to take him to dinner. The nurse was trying to take his blood sugars, and Mom tried to take him before the nurse was finished, saying they didn't have time. She said they were late for meeting someone. The nurse managed to finish with the blood sugar test and found out that Dad's sugars were very low. The nurse wanted to give him some food to bring them up. Mom insisted that they had to leave and didn't have time, and that she would feed him.

The nurse reported that Mom was driving dad's scooter down the hallway very erratically. The nurse was very concerned for Dad's safety and tried to get Mom not to remove him from the floor. In the end, the nurse couldn't physically restrain them from leaving and had to let them go. She reports that Mom was trying to feed Dad graham crackers as they went down the hallway.

When Mom brought Dad back, she said that she had tested his sugars and they were very high, so she gave him some insulin she had with her. She did report this to the nurse, which she does not always do. It was very fortunate that she did report it, because she gave him a kind of insulin that he no longer takes. If the nurses had given him his regularly scheduled insulin when he returned, he would have bottomed out. This could have been dangerous to him.

The House Supervisor wanted me to say that Dad couldn't leave the floor all weekend. I could not do this because I was no longer the POA. She said she would arrange a care meeting and impress upon Mom the importance of not taking Dad off the floor when he is in such a condition. I said that Lisa could probably attend this meeting.

Mom doesn't seem to understand that Dad is not always able to leave when she want's him to, that his health is quite fragile. She seems unable to judge when she should cancel or alter plans based on Dad's ability to participate, and the care that he needs at the time.

Angry Call

I got a call from Mom late last evening. She wanted to know why her two daughters were so focused on making sure she was declared bipolar. I tried to clarify the situation, but she told me to be quiet, she was going to have her say in the matter. So she proceeded for the next 4-5 min to tell me her entire story of her bipolar diagnosis (with which I am quite familiar), including her getting off medication and her "recovery". It is odd because she uses almost exactly the same wording every time she tells me this sequence of events. It's like she is playing a recorded conversation.

She was pretty angry, so I just let her talk. She said she's talked to 4 doctors now and none of them see any bipolar in her. So why are her two grown daughters out to get her? After a while I interrupted her, letting her know that I have absolutely no interest in having her declared bi-polar.

She wanted to know what I am trying to do. I told her that she gets very confused some days, and can't follow a conversation. Some days she if fine, and others she doesn't seem to be lucid. I want to know what is going on, because it might be treatable. In any case, we need to deal with it.

She said "Don't you think I want to take care of myself?" I said, "Yes, I do think you want to take care of yourself, and I do too. I'm not sure why we're arguing." She said, "I have to go." and hung up the phone.

I used to get very upset by these calls, because the point of them does not seem to be reaching resolution or solving a situation. After I told her that I don't want to declare her bipolar, that did not appear to be a relief to her, or to lead to any resolution. From her response, it appeared that she just wanted to vent her anger, and that I'd derailed her? I don't know what these calls are for, from her perspective. But since I stopped looking for them to restore peace in our relationship, they have not been as upsetting to me.

Missed Psych testing appointments w/ Dr. Manley

I got a call from Wendy at Dr Quiason's office. In the conversation, she told me that Mom has missed her second scheduled psych testing appointment with Dr. Manley on Monday, 3/22. (Both Wendy and I had understood from Mom that the appointment with Dr. Manley was supposed to be Friday 3/26.) I called Mom and left messages on her cell and home answering machine, telling her that I had learned she'd missed the appointment, that Wendy had been kind enough to reschedule it for Wednesday March 24 @ 11:45, and that I would pick her up and take her to the appointment. She called me back and told me she needed to reschedule it, because she hadn't been eating properly to prepare for it. She thought she was supposed to be fasting for it. I asked if she was referring to her colonoscopy appointment, and pointed out that there was no dietary preparation for this appointment to my knowledge. She got angry with me, asking if I thought she was so stupid that she didn't know the difference between a colonoscopy and a psychiatrist's appointment. (NOTE: I later discovered that Dr. Q had advised her to eat blueberries (as a memory help?) and she was concerned that she wouldn’t do well on the test since she hadn’t been eating blueberries!)

She grudgingly agreed to go to Dr. Manley's appointment, but wanted me to agree to take her to and pick her up from the colonoscopy she had scheduled for this Friday (3/26.) I told her I could drop her off, but asked her to arrange pickup from the Groves scheduled medical transportation, as I would be at work at that point. She became very angry with me, saying that riding in the Groves van was too rough and she couldn't believe I expected her to do that. When we hung up, she was still agreeing that I could pick her up Wednesday morning for Dr. Manley's appointment.

However, she called me back within the hour and left 2 voicemails. The first said she was NOT going to Dr. Manley's appointment on Wednesday. The second (left less than 5 minutes later) was calmer, telling me that the GI's office had called to reschedule her colonoscopy that Friday. Since they wanted to push the start time back to 9:30 (which she felt was unreasonable to ask her to fast until), she rescheduled the entire appointment for April. I called her back (in less than 10 minutes from the FIRST voicemail!) and told her that I would agree to take her both ways for the colonoscopy if she would agree to go to Dr. Manley's appointment on Wednesday. She seemed surprised, and said that of course she would go to that appointment! I reminded her of the first voicemail, and she seemed to have no idea what I was talking about! Sigh....

I'm picking her up this morning. I'll let you know how it goes.

Lisa

P.S. During the first conversation, she switched her story to say that she had not MISSED the appointments -- rather, she had rescheduled both of them, and she had no idea why Dr. Manley's office would think otherwise.

Ongoing Confusion

Talked to Mom a couple of times over the last three days. Each time she seems very confused. I called to ask her how she makes her beef stew, and she couldn't remember how to make stew (She used to rattle off those type of recipes from memory). Then I told her I am excited to show her some of the pictures I found of her and Dad, and she said, "yes, the weather is very nice here." I asked her if she was having trouble hearing me, and she said no, she understood me just fine. Today I asked if she knew where the cordless phone from Dad's room at Rosewood went, and she said, "Yes, Dad is doing really well. He should be out in a few days." I repeated my question about the phone, and she said she had to go. Both times she didn't appear to be avoiding my questions, she just didn't appear to be able to comprehend the question.

I talked to Dad today. He thinks he's getting out of Rosewood in 10 days or so. I told him they were looking at a long term admission to Rosewood because Mom appears to be getting confused a lot, and appears to be having trouble with maintaining his medication schedule. He said that Mom being confused was news to him, and that he'd never heard that before. I told him we'd discussed our concerns about Mom several times, and he wanted to know who I meant by "we". I told him he and I, he and Lisa, and the three of us with the social worker had all discussed it before, and he said he had no recollection of that.