fuck

Monday, March 17, 2008

I don't want to start every single blog post with an apology, but I feel like I should. Things have been SO crazy here. I've been trying my best not to talk about family related things in too much detail just because I don't think my family would appreciate it, but honestly I need to get some of this OUT. Just when I think things are going to start getting better, they somehow seem to get worse. Everyone (other members of my family, the various medical professionals who are in and out) keeps telling me that they're aware of my grandmother's dementia and that they don't take anything she says about me to heart, but it's still crippling to hear her telling people I'm trying to poison her food or that I'm abusing her when all I do is bend over backwards to give her everything that she needs.

Last Thursday morning she woke up with crippling stomach pains, and was moaning and yelling so loudly that David could hear her in the basement. She couldn't sit up in bed and was clutching her abdomen. She'd been having some mysterious bleeding in her underwear and I was afraid the two might be connected. I called my mother (at 6am) and she told me to call 911, which I did. At that point my grandmother completely lost her mind and targeted all of her fear and anger at me by telling me she was going to "kill me" and I was "going to pay" for all the "terrible things" I've "done to her." She said I was pathetic and should be ashamed of myself for taking everything so seriously. She accused me of trying to put her back into a nursing home so that I could take her house away from her. The EMT's strapped her to a gurney chair and she was scratching at the walls and pulling at her straps as they wheeled her away to the ambulance. It was horrifying and I felt terrible.

Needless to say, for various bullshit reasons that actually caused me to have a pretty serious panic attack later that day, she came back instead of being admitted (which she should have been, I have no doubt in my mind) and is now living with me again. It was terribly traumatic for everyone involved, and because of that incident (and my grandmother's disposition toward me afterwards) my family is now paying for 24 hour/7 day a week care by home health aides until we can find an assisted living facility for her.

At first it seemed like this was going to work out, for a lot of reasons. The women who were coming in to care for my grandmother day and night were wonderful, compassionate people who truly knew their work. They were kind to my grandmother and I was thankful for that. I would go upstairs to cook food or use the bathroom and pop in for 15 or so minutes at a time just to say hi. But now it looks like my grandmother won't be able to get into assisted living for months, and we can't afford to do the 24 hour care any longer after this coming Thursday.

My grandmother has "profound" dementia that has been slowly escalating for years. Every doctor, nurse and family member I've talked to assures me that she doesn't mean the things she says. That's all well and good for them to say, except that after these "episodes" pass her opinion of me stays changed. It's not as though when she's in a better mood she changes her mind or forgets that she ever called me names or threatened my life. Her moods go back to normal and her mental state becomes clear, but even then I'm still a thief and liar who's plotting to kill her. She denies her outburst to her doctors, my mother and my aunt, but remembers them and brings them up when she gets me alone. She has literally turned me into a demon scapegoat and that opinion doesn't change even as all of her other symptoms subside and cease. The doctors/nurses/family also aren't here with her as much as I am, and don't know what it's like to be at the brunt of all of these attacks. Her agitation isn't constant, so that not too many people (especially doctors who only see her for a half hour to an hour at a time) see how bad it can be.

I can hear her upstairs right now telling her afternoon health aide about how evil I am and about all of my "plots," and that women doesn't know me at all. She just met my grandmother and I today for the first time. Documented dementia or not, who would you tend to believe? A helpless, frail old lady or her 25 year old granddaughter living in the basement rent free? The fact that the suspicion is there at all completely unnerves me, and makes me feel like I have to hide in the basement all day long. I also have to face the fact that (again, dementia or no dementia) my grandmother's opinion of me will be negative and volatile until her death, regardless of how much I love her or try to help her, and that completely breaks my heart.


So now it looks like it's going to be more of the same for me, for months and months into the future, just when I was really starting to think things would change. I wish to God that my posts here could be about the baby, or interesting music, or things I'm happy or excited about. I have three months left before the baby is born and am facing the possibility that I might need to care for both the baby and my grandmother at the same time, depending on how long the waiting list is for the facility we want to put her in. I don't know what I'm going to do. I've been doing my very best to put a brave face forward and roll with every punch as it comes, but I don't know how much more of this I can take.