Help! Help! She's Trying to Kill Me!!!

Yes, that is what I heard tonight from my upstairs office. Preceding this was a combination scream/maniacal laugh coming from Blanche. I really could not tell which it was supposed to be. I calmly walked downstairs to find Blanche sitting on the couch clutching Tracy's hand. Tracy was telling her to let go of her hand, but Blanche would not do that. So I looked at her and said, "what's the matter?" Blanche did not respond to me at all, and finally Tracy was able to free her hand. So Tracy said to her, "I'll heat up a piece of pizza for you and we're going over to your house so you can eat it over there, okay?"

And Blanche responded with "oh I don't think so. I can just imagine what you're going to put in it." Blanche had calmed down once I came downstairs, but after Tracy heated up her pizza and sent her home, she told me what had happened. Tracy was attempting to lead Blanche back over to her apartment because she was wandering around, looking through our mail and generally being a nuisance as Tracy and I were both trying to work on this snowy Friday. (She's a nuisance because she just asks the same questions over and over and over and over, well, you get it.) That's when Blanche flipped out and actually tried to bite Tracy's hand! Tracy held her off and that's when Blanche screamed for me to help her because Tracy was trying to kill her! So that's definitely a new thing and I hope it doesn't last too long.

Yesterday, the doctor started Blanche on medication for her afternoon paranoia, but I'm not sure how long it can take to make a difference. The behavior does seem to be escalating. It starts earlier in the day, so hopefully when we change the caregiver's hours to 1 to 4, instead of 11 to 2, it will give me that additional couple of hours so I can continue to work. Once Blanche starts banging on the door, whether it's 2 p.m. or 4 p.m., my workday is done. She simply requires constant attention because we don't know what she will do when she is in our house.

After she ate her pizza and came back over, it was as if it had never happened. So there we were, Tracy and me, still stewing over this new, big incident, and Blanche had no idea it had even happened. Welcome to our world...

Can I borrow your car...

...so I can get away? That was the frantic question today from Blanche. She was convinced that "the man" was coming to get her cat. So she rationalized that if I would just give her the keys to my car, she could get away. Blanche insisted that she would take her cat, Cleo, to her mother's house in Shelton and then she would be safe. This is where I get confused. Am I supposed to tell her that her mother has been gone for years? Or do I go along with the charade just to try to get her to settle down?

I had decided that if I just ignore the banging on the door, I could continue working and Blanche would just come every few minutes, bang a little, then go home. But today, she practically tore the door down and combined her banging with screaming "help me, help me." It was horrible.

Today was such a bad day, I can't even write about it anymore.

There's a Police Car in our Driveway!

So Tracy took me to the eye doctor yesterday. We were gone about three hours. When we got home, it was about 4:30 and there was a police car in our driveway. We walked around to the back of the house, where Blanche's entrance is, and there they were up on the porch, Blanche and one of Seymour's finest. The police officer was taking the screen off of the kitchen window to Blanche's apartment and Blanche was standing there clutching her telephone. She had locked herself out of the house! We don't know how long she had been outside and fortunately it was not cold yesterday.

I asked the officer who had called him and his answer wasn't quite clear. I think he said the lady next door had come over to help Blanche and that the neighbor had probably made the call. I highly doubt Blanche could have made it. So Tracy explained to the officer that her mother has Alzheimer's and he asked if she is registered with the Seymour Police Department. Since we had no idea there was such a program, we said no, but we'll get her registered as soon as possible. It's amazing how easy it is to learn about programs and things available for people with Alzheimer's. I'm being sarcastic here because it's amazing how much caregivers can learn AFTER something bad happens. Oh well.

So after we get Blanche safe and sound back in the house, she spends the next two hours during and after dinner asking Tracy where she was going to sleep that night. I have learned that a rational human being can answer the same question calmly maybe three times maximum. After that, it's going to get ugly!

Tonight, I was by myself with Blanche. The caregiver was with her from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. At around 3, Blanche started pounding on the new door we put up between her apartment and our house. I hang a sign on that door which is a note to Blanche, which tells her that I am working and she should not bang on the door until after 5 p.m. The sign works great (again, sarcasm). So I just continue to work and fortunately, the pounding is periodic. It only happens every 8 or 9 minutes from around 3 p.m. until I open the door when I am done working for the day. The problem is that I work upstairs in my office and Blanche cannot be left alone downstairs in our house because she does odd things. She feeds the dogs people food, she feeds the cats dog food, she puts things where we are sure to never find them, she goes through (and takes) our mail, and the list goes on and on. As harsh as it may sound, that is why she is locked out of our house during the day.

One more thing about today. After the second round of very loud banging, my phone started to ring. It was Blanche! So she can use the phone, which I don't know if that's good or bad. Anyway, she asks for Tracy and I say it's JoAnn. She asks me when I'm coming home. I tell her that I'll be done working at 5 p.m. and that she can come over then. So she asks me where I am now and where I'll be coming from. I try for the next 10 minutes to explain but it is to no avail. So I finally settle for telling her that we are having dinner at 5 p.m. and I'll come to get her so she shouldn't worry. I told her that I know how to get to her house and that seems to satisfy her.

We hang up the phone and 8 minutes later, she is pounding on the door downstairs again...take two Excedrin and repeat tomorrow...

I'm Not Proud of this Post.

Two days ago, on Thursday, I yelled at Blanche. And I mean, I yelled at her. We were sitting in the living room having dinner - we eat on tray tables in front of the TV. I know, not the best idea, but with the TV noise, we don't hear the increasingly loud noises that Blanche makes while she eats. Selfish of us, but walk a mile in our shoes before you toss those stones. Tracy was in the kitchen and I got up and brought my plate into the kitchen. As I came back into the living room, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Blanche toss a piece of pork to my dog, Petie, but I just wasn't sure.

So I sat back down and waited for her to finish eating, confident that if she had fed Petie, she wouldn't repeat it with me sitting right there. (Just for the record, we have told her repeatedly that the dogs cannot eat people food). So as I sat there, I watched her put a piece of pork in her hand, but she was eating it with her hand so I still thought it was okay. Then in the blink of an eye, with her left hand, she flipped the piece of pork to Hazel, my other dog. I just lost it! I said, "what are you doing?" She replied, "What?"

I said, "I've asked you repeatedly not to feed my dogs people food and you just did that exact thing!"

"No, I didn't", she said.

So I was so angry, I kept yelling at her. And like a child, she just got very quiet and went back to her apartment within five minutes of my tirade.

What's the point of this story? And I mean that literally - I'm asking you. There is no point. By the time she walked 1 minute back to her apartment she had no memory of our altercation and I was left steaming for the next hour.

So, here I sit, on a Saturday night, still feeling bad, and trying to be a better person about this whole situation. But it is a constant struggle. I know it won't be like this forever and we just have to hang in there and continue to do the right thing and make sure Blanche is taken care of for as long as we can take care of her. It's hard to remember that in the moments when she's tossing pork to my dogs...bye for now.

"The Son Sitting in the Chair..."

...turned out to be Blanche's cat, Cleo. I found that out when I made her go back to her apartment with me right behind her so I could confront for her all of the "people" that were hanging out in her apartment. We walked in and there was Cleo, sitting in a chair. So I asked Blanche if that was "the son sitting in the chair" and she said yes. Another mystery solved, until tomorrow when I am certain we will repeat the entire exercise again.

Just to digress for a moment, yesterday Blanche told me she had to go back to her apartment because her husband was waiting for her over there. Since he died in 2004, I told her yes, he's waiting for you, but not over in your apartment! (Just kidding - I just thought that. I didn't really say it out loud, although I am tempted sometimes because she would never remember from one moment to the next what was just said.)

Our next challenge will be getting the caregiver that comes in four days a week to actually DO something when she is spending time with Blanche. It's been quite a learning experience for us regarding what professional caregivers say they will do and what they actually do! For example, when we went on vacation in September, we had a full-time caregiver living with Blanche. We had a meeting with the caregiver and the office manager and the liasion to make sure everyone was on the same page and that they knew what to do. Well, apparently even though the office manager was taking notes, she never passed those notes on to the caregiver when it came time for her to stay full-time with Blanche for 10 days.

So when we came home, most of the instructions we had given were not followed and it was extremely annoying and frustrating to think for $220.00 per day (plus meals and mileage), we did not receive the services we were supposed to receive. When I spoke to the office manager on our return, her response was that the caregiver needed to take better notes next time! When I pointed out that everyone was taking notes during that meeting, the office manager just glossed over that and did not really respond. The last thing I have to say is that when we signed on with this company (who shall remain nameless), they put a notebook in Blanche's apartment that they would fill out as a daily log as to what they were doing each day and how Blanche was doing. I ended up having to call TWICE to ask them to please fill out the log everyday as that is our only resource to keep us informed as to what goes on during the day.

The moral of the story here that no matter how reputable the company, or group or person, or how highly recommended they are, it is up to you, and you alone, to keep on top of things regularly and make sure your loved one is getting the care that you are paying for and the services that you are paying for. It's simple really. Hope this helps someone else who may be in the same situation. If you must know the group we are using, contact me privately and I will tell you who they are. I will also tell you that we continue to use them, but we are much more diligent in making sure they do what they are supposed to do.