Adventures With Alzheimer's

Just a quick disclaimer before we begin: I really do love my grandmother. She's a wonderful woman and I'm very sad that she will never be the same person she was when I was younger. However tragic the degenerative effects of Alzheimer's may be, though, sometimes they can lead to some very funny situations. If you can't laugh at times like these, the bad times will tear you down even quicker.

Now, on with the show:

About a year and a half ago, my grandmother moved from Ohio to live with my mom and step-dad here in Idaho because she couldn't take care of herself anymore. Here are some of the dimentia-induced highlights:

1. The first day she was here, she introduced herself to me 4 times in one hour. My aunt Dinah was the one who brough Gram out here from Ohio, so my mom took the opportunity to show her around our town (which is actually quite lovely). I stayed with Gram while they were out. When I made her toast and tea for an afternoon snack, she tried to give me a tip.

2. One morning Gram came out into the living room dressed in a summer dress over pajama bottoms with rubber boots on and tried to sneak out the front door without my mom (who, at the time, was in the kitchen, which is just off the living room) noticing. Thankfully, mom saw her and stopped her before she went wandering off. Gram said she had written a Broadway play and was going down to the store get a copy of the New York Times to read their review of it. She was really worried about what they thought of it. In a situation like this, there's not really much you can do. Mom just reassured her that she had always been a good writer (which is true, actually) and said she was sure the New York Times critic liked it. Then she offered to get a copy of the paper when she went to the grocery store later that day. She was hoping that Gram would forget about it by then. She was right!

3. Sometime during the first week of January 2004, she came out of her room one morning and proclaimed brightly, "Happy Easter!" When I tried to explain to her that it was January and that Easter was some time off still, she just nodded and smiled politely. She never believes a word I say. When mom came home from wherever she had gone that morning, Gram wished her a happy Easter too. When mom explained that it wasn't Easter yet, Gram immediately believed her. *facepalm*

4. Over the summer, I'd been having a lot of trouble with insomnia. It wasn't helping that I was having to get up pretty early for my job at the public library in Sandpoint. One night, I finally got to sleep, only to be woken up moments later by Gram turning her TV up as loud as it would go. She's legally blind, so she's got a lot of problems distinguishing the channel changing buttons from the volume controling buttons. That wouldn't be such a problem if she'd just turn the TV right back down once she realizes she's got the wrong buttons, but she just leaves it cranked up like that. We live in a Cape Cod style house, and the entire half-story upstairs is my bedroom. My bed happens to be directly above her television. I shoot up out of bed and go down to ask her to turn it down. She does, and I go back to bed. I finally start nodding off again and she cranks it back up! I go down again to ask her to turn it down, only to find that she has locked her bedroom door. She shouted that she wouldn't open the door because I was a stranger and that if I didn't leave she would call the cops. I had to wake my mom up.

5. Another night that summer, I'd finally managed to nod off in the wee hours of the morning, only to have Gram open my door and call up the stairs: "Grandma?! Grandma?!" I get up, and go downstairs and ask her what's going on. She says "Have you seen my grandma? She was just here and now I can't find her!" I try to explain to her that the only people who live here are my mom, step-dad, and me (I just didn't have the heart to tell her that her grandmother has been dead for decades). She smiles and nods, because she never, ever believes me, and continues looking for her grandmother, even checking behind my step-dad's Lazy Boy in the living room. Finally, when Gram starts yanking on the front door (which we close with a padlock at nights, so she can't go wandering off) to go look outside, the noise of me trying to convince her to go back to bed wakes my mom up. Mom comes out and explains that Gram's grandmother isn't here and she must have just had a vivid dream. Gram readily agrees, and goes back to bed. *double facepalm*

6. Gram fell asleep during M*A*S*H. She wakes up, and wanders into the livingroom and grabs the phone off the end table. She turns it on and dials some random numbers. My mom asks her who she's calling. Gram explains that she's trying to call the Army because she'll get in trouble if they find out she's off base without permission. Have I mentioned that my Gram is 86 and has never been in the Army?

It's never dull at my house, that's for sure.

Heart Update:
Well, I thought I should probably update y'all on my heart thing. I went to the doctor the other day. He listened to my heart, took my BP, hooked me up to a EKG and all that. Basically, I just need to calm the fuck down. It's stress, just like my mom said it was. Or rather, it was due to me de-stressing. I finally de-toxed a little, so my heart was adjusting. The doc gave me an anti-anxiety/anti-depressant to calm me down. Unfortunately, it made me violently ill. I do not have a good track record with anti-depressants. However, since Expedia totally screwed me over with regards to my flight home (switching my flight at the last minute so I'll be arriving in DIA an hour after my shuttle to Laramie leaves), my stress levels shot right back up to normal, so my heart isn't doing that fluttery thing anymore.*

* = Thank you thank you thank you I love you Abra for coming to get my sorry ass tomorrow.

Current Mood: Plane-phobic
Current Music: "Organic Anti-Beat Box Band" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers