Another Day With Dementia

So I made the trip down to LaGrange earlier this week to take my Grandmother to the Neurologist. First off, the day did not start off well at all… I could not find my wallet before I left the house at the crack of dawn for boot camp… long story short I went to work and to LaGrange with no drivers license, no debit card, no credit card, nothing! I was NOT a happy camper! Fortunately, I had taken $40 out of the ATM the day before, but that only filled my gas tank up to a ½ of a tank! I had to borrow another $20 from a co-worker to get back…I worked almost a half-day and then made the long drive. She was waiting for me AT THE FRONT DOOR of the assisted living facility- seriously! Lord knows how long she had been standing there! I loaded her up in the truck and off we went to lunch. Lunch ran very smoothly to say the least. We took our time and she enjoyed a hamburger, fries and a strawberry sundae. We then drove over to the doctor’s office. She jammed the entire way there to her favorite- Sirius 65- the Bluegrass satellite radio station. She just loves that kind of music! I really enjoy watching her dancing and singing to the bluegrass and gospel they play on that station… it is really and truly the only time I get to see her so happy… She then tells she has to go to the restroom. So the first thing I do once we enter the office is take her to the restroom… she is automatically intimidated by the industrial-type toilet and accessories and asks me to stay with her (this is a small one-toilet restroom but handicap accessible). So I stay and wind up having to help her because the toilet was really high and she could not “find” the toilet paper, etc. And that is when I spotted the underwear. She had on a pair of underwear that was too big for my butt! They looked like a mini-skirt on her with the leg openings being WAY too big for her little chicken legs. I could not believe it! I ask her where the underwear came from… she thinks they are hers! Needless to say, the FIRST thing we did when we got back to her apt. was THROW them out! They even had her name marked in them! Unbelievable! Anyhoo, back to the Doctor… we go in for her appt. and she only weighs 90 lbs- something that I address with the Doctor- he said it is normal for her to not want to eat…he also said her taste for food is probably gone… and that is normal too! He keeps asking the same ol’ questions as the last 10 times we have gone in for “check-ups”. I tell him about her current daily habit of finding things “stolen” from her apartment and that this has been going on now for almost 2 weeks straight. He does not even bat an eyelash to that one. Must be normal too! Of course, she wants to know what I am talking about… I ask him about her meds. I tell him I want to do a trial and error on her Aricept. He is surprised! I keep talking about how I read several medical articles that all those Alzheimer’s meds might not really help. She has been on Aricept for almost 5 years and I truly believe that it has not helped her one bit. He finally agrees to take her off of it and see how she does until the next appt. I have to be honest that I have struggled mentally with this subject for a really long time. Take her off all her brain meds or not? Will it worsen her? Will it help? Who knows! All I know is that this medicine costs A LOT of money and she has only progressed downward in the last year and a half. She will stay on the seizure meds and go completely off the Alz meds. Am I a bad person for doing this? I think there is no stopping the inevitable at this point. Every day she gets worse- her vocabulary is VERY minimal. She usually forgets happenings or conversations from one day to the next. Her mind operates in cycles- this cycle is stolen stuff. Next cycle will be all the “bugs” in her room crawling on her, etc. The vicious side effects of dementia just never stop taking their toll on her… or me. I do not think there was one day in the past two weeks that I did not get upset with her on the phone after hearing the same story about her leaving her apt. for a meal and then coming back to her room only to find all of her shoes stolen again… How many times can the same 6 pair of shoes get stolen?