It all happened sometime during a five day period when I'd been unable to visit her due to a cold and fever I had; Wifey was able to visit her after work, but only late -- by that time, Mumsie was usually in bed, and tho she made little sense, everyone chalked it up to exhaustion.  The staff had said she was fine earlier in the day each time.

About a day before I felt it was safe for me to visit, Wifey showed up earlier in the day -- and Mumsie was still lethargic and incoherent.  The staff said she seemed tired, but had been fine up to that day, and earlier.  

I visited early the next day.

Mumsie was obviously incoherent and having issues; she still hadn't eaten in a while.  At that time we all came to the realization that whatever had happened had occurred earlier in the week.

Yesterday, the nursing home sent her to the hospital for tests.  Wifey and I went in and spent most of the day with her.

...and at this point, I'm turning this over to Wifey for the remainder...

___________

Wifey's Words...
___________

Tests were negative.  No indication of stroke, which was the first thing everyone at the NH thought.  After a long bout of agitation, they gave her a tranquilizer, which knocked her out for most of the time she was there.  They discharged her back to the NH this afternoon, saying that she's probably entered the late stage of ALZ (where basically everything goes to pot, as it were).

She was still snoozing when GreyHawk and I went to see her earlier this evening.  At the foot of her bed the charge nurse and I discussed my signing the DNR/DNH papers.  I don't know if Mom registered exactly what we were discussing or if it was our voices or, more specifically GreyHawk's voice, but her eyes suddenly flew open.  She sat up and told GreyHawk she didn't think people were doing their jobs.  What people, we had no idea -- but, as in cases like this, you go along with their reality.  Her eyes became wide and wild while she tried telling us that "some women are like that" before going back to the not-doing-their-jobs thing.  At one point GreyHawk asked Mom if she wanted some ice cream (the NH keeps a supply of cups of vanilla Lactaid ice cream in the floor's freezer).  Mom's eyes lit up.  When GreyHawk came back and tried feeding it to her, she grabbed the cup and spoon from him and started feeding herself.  Sheer utter heaven until he asked her how it was.  She replied, "Eh," but kept eating it, interspersing "mmmmm"s between each bite.  We surmised later on that 1) it's the only food she's eaten for the past week, and 2) it was the coldness and sweetness that got her attention more than the flavor.

Water...Mom's always been a water lover, so we figured, why not?  The minute GreyHawk put the cup to her lips, she took a sip then shook her head.  He tried again.  She shook her head.  He then leaned over, saying she should take another sip.  She put out her arms.  I honestly thought she was going to hit him.  "NO NO NO NO!"  (She didn't, btw.)  But considering that GreyHawk's known as the family irritant, and knowing Mom's propensity to wanting to be challenged, he got her irritated enough to actually speak fairly clearly!

She then turned over and said "Go away.  Goodbye."  We know when we're being dismissed, so we kissed her and said we'd return tomorrow morning.

What do I make of all this?  Well...in all honesty I'm trying not to get my hopes up.  ALZ is such a fluctuating disease that one can't predict one day from the next how the patient will behave.  There are good days and bad.  Both the charge nurse and the doc at the hospital told me that they've seen this type of behavior before...in some, but not all cases, it can be seen as one of the last hurrahs before descending into silence and sleep.

However, that's not as important as the fact that GreyHawk got Mom irritated enough for her to speak fairly coherently!  A meandering conversation (except for the ice cream) to be sure, but a conversation nevertheless.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.

by GreyHawk on Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 12:12:11 AM EST

Anyway, since we got there around dinnertime, they let the 3 of us sit in the TV room (more room, less people).  They gave Mom mac and cheese.  Instead of eating it, she tried divving it up between the three of us (she used to do this at home), keeping probably the equivalent of one spoonful for herself.  GH tried to get her to eat first.  She refused.  I tried.  She refused.  Finally she picked up one lone elbow, put it in her mouth, then spat it out.  During all this she kept trying to tell GH something about taxes and the new laws coming out [Mom used to work for the Feds].  That segued into something about somebody not doing their job and how she had to tell somebody...I'm not sure what else she was trying to say because, although her speech is more coherent, there's still a lot of blabber there.

We knew she probably wouldn't eat, so we brought out the small cup of rainbow sherbet we'd gotten on the way there.  I mixed some of into a cup of strawberry Ensure.  shaking head OMG, you would've thought Mom had died and gone to heaven!  We gave her two more cups.  Then we brought out the small hot fudge sundae we'd also gotten.  Mom ate every bit, eyes glowing.

The hallucinations.  I don't know what else you'd call them.  She'd start telling us a story about someone-or-other that would suddenly wander off into a million tangents.  If we asked her to clarify something, she'd go off on yet another tangent.  There was something about my dad's old business partner.  Something about her mother.  And work.  A lot of what she babbles is about office work, be it with the Feds or the jobs she'd had before I was born.  Like I said before, you have no choice but to play along with her reality.  We tried to understand what she was saying.  We really did.

At one point we brought her out to the patio to see the flowers.  GH went to get some water while I wheeled Mom around the garden.  She kept babbling as though I wasn't there.  Same thing when GH returned.  We stayed there for a few minutes, then took her back upstairs.

All in all, a pretty good visit.  At least she's not lethargic.  We know she'll drink Ensure if it's got sherbet in it.  The wild-eyed look she now has does unsettle me a bit, though.

by GreyHawk on Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 07:37:28 PM EST

Maybe if one way or the other you get some food and water in her things will improve. Hoping for you.

by carol white on Sun Aug 12, 2007 at 10:04:54 AM EST

(((The Greyhawks)))
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by ilona on Sun Aug 12, 2007 at 10:50:19 AM EST