Luckily for me, the situation only happens every few months. But still as the main decision maker in regards to her health and estate, a good portion of my day is spent dealing with her issues, the problems she is causing, the insurance companies, and figuring out how to make her money last while doing what is best for her. It is also exhausting.
Dementia is a cruel disease.
Two months ago we had to move Grandma into an assisted living facility. I was a bit apprehension, for numerous reasons, but neither myself or my sister could take on the responsibilities of being a full time caregiver. The situation lasted six weeks. Due to her wandering around at all hours of the night, occasionally in nothing more than her undergarments, and not respecting the privacy of other resident's apartments by simply barging in on them whenever she wants, I was asked to move her out.
My choices were to quit my job and become full time caregiver, move her into a different facility closer to me, or move her over to the full care side of her current facility. After about a week of debate and weighing out the factors of all these options and talking with Grandma in an attempt to make her understand why she had to move again; the solution was made. She has friends at her current facility and the staff knows her so we choose to move her to the full care side, which runs about three times as much per day for a shared room.
I think she understands why but doesn't believe she was doing any of the above mentioned things nor does she want to leave. The not remembering part makes it hard to convince her that it's a safety issue and she needs to be monitored more closely. Sharing a room with another person is the last bit of her independence being taken away, at least in her mind. At least she went from being very mad and throw fits about the move to simply voicing her opinion saying "You know I dont want to leave."
Today was the move. I think she will do better on the full care side. So does the nurses and social worker at the facility. She often gets bored and is always asking "what am I suppose to do". The hard part is she has lost almost all interest in most activities so she shoots down my suggestions on how to stay busy. On the full care side there is more people to talk to and she might hear the activities going on and head down to check them out. It was another big move and another big adjustment for her to make.
Today wasn't easy for her. Glimpses of her old personality comes through tearing my insides apart. But those moments aren't true reality as that really person doesn't exist anymore. It's a shell of her former self and it will only get worse. I've witnessed it first hand. I keep telling myself this is the best situation for her at this stage of the disease. Hell, it's really the last option.
Dementia is cruel. To it's victim and their loved ones.
Observations of an Illogical Mind by www.seankimmel.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Please feel free to share the link but contact me for any other uses or publication. Thanks.
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