Medications and Mother

My mother is a very independent personality. Dementia visit to her house doesn't make it any easier to communicate or help her. She is also very kind and polite to guests and to those she does not see as a threat to her independence.

She recently had a bought of pneumonia. It came on very suddenly from a bronchial infection and we only learned of it because of the X-rays the doctor ordered. I was out of town when she became ill and even though my husband took her to see the doctor, she refused to allow him to go in for her prescribed x-rays. By the time we actually talked her into going she was not well and of course, the x-rays showed pneumonia in her lung's lower lobes. She was put on more medicine that she faithfully took.

But this brings up a very valid and good point. She obviously didn't feel well when she had my husband take her to see the doctor, and being a retired nurse she would have known that the coughing and the congestion signaled a serious infection. Why did she refuse to get an x-ray? In order to get her to go in for one, I actually had to call the doctor's secretary 1.5 weeks after it was ordered and tell her that mother was refusing to go in. "I don't feel well," or "it's too hot outside to go anywhere." She had plenty of reasons. But when the doctor's secretary called and told her they had not received the results from her x-ray, she decided she should comply.

So this brings me to the bigger point: If she would refuse to go in for a needed x-ray would she also refuse to take her medications on a daily basis? Because of mother's fierce independence, she has never allowed me privy to her medication list. She guards them. As I said she is very private. The admissions nurse to the Home Health Care Company we are currently using suggested that because she had three different locations in the house where she keeps her medications, it is highly probable that she is not taking all of her medications.

Today when the visiting nurse was there I spoke privately with her about the medications issue. She offered to help by bringing a medication box on her next visit and helping to get all of her medications in one place. She suggested that I allow the nurse to do this as my mother might see my involvement as an attempt to take her independence from her. After the routine is established I can become more involved in helping her load the medications into the daily pill dispenser.

Again this is the "give and take" of dementia. We have to play a game with dementia as to who is in charge. Dementia must believe it is. As a retired nurse, my mother respects the medical profession and will after a bit of a fuss allow the nurses to do their jobs. She will not do the same for me. Even though I am her loving daughter, she has a fear that I will take her independence from her. The insanity of dementia is that it confuses all of the emotional bonds that families used to comfortably share.

I am thankful for the nurses who will help to establish healthy routines as we begin to set up for the onset of dementias darker days. I am thankful for my mother's willingness to listen to someone other than me. And for allowing me to remain in the main role as her daughter.

Today was a good day. She endured her physical therapist and nurses visit with mirth and a good spirit. Characteristic of her personality she cracked jokes with the nurse and shared a lighter side of her good nature. She was grateful for her new plants and had worked hard the night before to put them into the ground before the rains came. She wanted very badly to go out this afternoon after her nap but called me to say she was too tired to venture out.

I have wasted a great deal of energy believing that she was being mean to me when she would change her mind on a dime. I don't think I have taken the necessary time to consider what it must be like for her. She is scared. She is lonely. She is confused. And she is tired. Her anxiety overwhelms her sometimes and the thought of going out of her comfortable house is too much.

In class we discussed how simplification is paramount. Dementia sees the world as a chaotic place where noise and colored patterns confuse. Mother used to love to go to church and sing her heart out, but now she can not muster the courage to sit in a crowd of people with foreign smells, colors, and loud sounds. It wears her out. I have offered numerous times to take her to her church. It always is the same. She says yes she would like to go. She gets excited about going and pin curls her hair, picks out a dress and then on Sunday morning refuses to leave the house.

I am grateful for what dementia has not yet taken from me. I am grateful that today I had a good long hug with my mother and that she knows I love her. It made me happy to see that she had the energy to walk about and to plant the plants and enjoy the world one more day.