As you may have read, earlier in the week, we were able to place some monitoring on Mom's behaviors to see what was happening with her sleeping, bathing, and exercise.
One issue that did come up, though, as well, was her locking her room door and continually asking for the key to re-open it. As the holder of the key, I was reluctant to simply hand the only key over to her, so I did have one made to see if this would alleviate the problem. I also gave one to my eldest brother, just in case.
So, not much news on the monitoring, except that we did discover the reason she never seems to be wearing her compression stockings - they put them on and she takes them off. They put them on and she takes them off. This occurs 2-4 times a day. That naughty girl!
She was able to get her hair done, though, and I believe she had a mani-pedi, although sluicing information from her is far from simple. She did state, though, that she did see Barb, the beauty shop lady, either last week or this. But details were not at all there.
On Wednesday, she had her visit from the RLC, and they visited for about two and a half hours. She had no interest in Scrabble at all. Now, whether or not this is a sign of the next stage of decline we are not hedging our bets.
They did engage in chatter and had a most lovely time. At one point, there was something they were discussing about a girl they had known in their youthful days and Mom told Connie that Jean Flynn Mitchell was the person to ask (Jean was seated with the two, of course). They simply smiled knowingly. This is the first instance of Capgras with someone else, aside from myself, I have knowledge of.
Mom seems to be happy wearing her newer clothes - the pants both Tom & Peg bought and those I gave her, as well as some of the tops.
This evening, as the weather was warmer, she was garbed in a sweatshirt and shorts. She was napping when my brother came to fetch her. They took a languid drive to St. Paul, and then drove back to his house for dinner.
I'm not positive, but it seemed Mother was quite easily upset by anyone discussing anything without her input. As my brother stated, "She kept speaking to us using the same phrases as when we were children!" And this was true. I was asked a question and was responding with a direct answer and Mom said, "Stop speaking as though you know everything. Nobody likes arrogance!" We were discussing a movie my brother and I had seen, but Mom hadn't. She continued this way all evening, pointing her comments my way. To be honest, after half a century, I'm nearly immune.
She did ask for iced tea, at one point and was angry it wasn't wine. Then, she was fine, for five minutes. Then she demanded to know why we'd taken her wine. <sigh>
On leaving, she began hitting me with a magazine, as she felt I was being bossy in telling her we needed to leave (after she had stated time and time again she wanted to go home). So, I asked my brother who had tried to intervene, during the journal beating, to try his hand with me out of the room. She succumbed to his wiles, and began to complain of a bad back and walking to the car was just too painful.
Aha! We gave her no choice.
On the way home she was quite congenial. She remarked that she was going to have a bath when we returned and hoped she could walk upstairs to get her things (there is no "upstairs" for her where she resides). We watched the sunset behind us on the freeway and came into the gardens to admire the irises back at St. A's as we ventured to her cottage and room.
I had tried, earlier, to bribe her with a bite of chocolate in order to get her to leave my brother's, so I gave her one upon our return. There was no drama about medications from her, and I do believe she enjoyed the evening, although it will be filed away in some corner of her brain that keeps new things. That's okay.
Hopefully, Tuesday, I will be able to report on the monitoring from the past week.
One issue that did come up, though, as well, was her locking her room door and continually asking for the key to re-open it. As the holder of the key, I was reluctant to simply hand the only key over to her, so I did have one made to see if this would alleviate the problem. I also gave one to my eldest brother, just in case.
So, not much news on the monitoring, except that we did discover the reason she never seems to be wearing her compression stockings - they put them on and she takes them off. They put them on and she takes them off. This occurs 2-4 times a day. That naughty girl!
She was able to get her hair done, though, and I believe she had a mani-pedi, although sluicing information from her is far from simple. She did state, though, that she did see Barb, the beauty shop lady, either last week or this. But details were not at all there.
On Wednesday, she had her visit from the RLC, and they visited for about two and a half hours. She had no interest in Scrabble at all. Now, whether or not this is a sign of the next stage of decline we are not hedging our bets.
They did engage in chatter and had a most lovely time. At one point, there was something they were discussing about a girl they had known in their youthful days and Mom told Connie that Jean Flynn Mitchell was the person to ask (Jean was seated with the two, of course). They simply smiled knowingly. This is the first instance of Capgras with someone else, aside from myself, I have knowledge of.
Mom seems to be happy wearing her newer clothes - the pants both Tom & Peg bought and those I gave her, as well as some of the tops.
This evening, as the weather was warmer, she was garbed in a sweatshirt and shorts. She was napping when my brother came to fetch her. They took a languid drive to St. Paul, and then drove back to his house for dinner.
I'm not positive, but it seemed Mother was quite easily upset by anyone discussing anything without her input. As my brother stated, "She kept speaking to us using the same phrases as when we were children!" And this was true. I was asked a question and was responding with a direct answer and Mom said, "Stop speaking as though you know everything. Nobody likes arrogance!" We were discussing a movie my brother and I had seen, but Mom hadn't. She continued this way all evening, pointing her comments my way. To be honest, after half a century, I'm nearly immune.
She did ask for iced tea, at one point and was angry it wasn't wine. Then, she was fine, for five minutes. Then she demanded to know why we'd taken her wine. <sigh>
On leaving, she began hitting me with a magazine, as she felt I was being bossy in telling her we needed to leave (after she had stated time and time again she wanted to go home). So, I asked my brother who had tried to intervene, during the journal beating, to try his hand with me out of the room. She succumbed to his wiles, and began to complain of a bad back and walking to the car was just too painful.
Aha! We gave her no choice.
On the way home she was quite congenial. She remarked that she was going to have a bath when we returned and hoped she could walk upstairs to get her things (there is no "upstairs" for her where she resides). We watched the sunset behind us on the freeway and came into the gardens to admire the irises back at St. A's as we ventured to her cottage and room.
I had tried, earlier, to bribe her with a bite of chocolate in order to get her to leave my brother's, so I gave her one upon our return. There was no drama about medications from her, and I do believe she enjoyed the evening, although it will be filed away in some corner of her brain that keeps new things. That's okay.
Hopefully, Tuesday, I will be able to report on the monitoring from the past week.
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