Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Part Two of mothers Alzheimers
I booked my sons flight with mother and after telling them she had Alzheimer they bent over backwards to get them on the same flight all the way there and back. Mother told me I sounded oike a professional and she couldn't believe I did it with such ease. Jesse flew here from Santa Cruz the 19th and their flight left about 6am so the shuttle was going to pick them up at 4am. Mother got up way to early waking Jesse and telling him she heard the shuttle honk. I heard the comotion and went to look. There was no one so I told her to go back to sleep as it was only 1:30 and not time to get up yet. She was like a little girl. She went to bed and got up at 3am. Jesse went to take a shower and I packed snacks for mother to take and water. The shuttle came at 4am and they were off. I had printed out their itineries and tickets. The first night them were there, Jesse went to bed early and mother was sitting up with her cousin Margory. Margory asked mother to go into this dark bedroom (no lights) and turn a crank on an old crank bed (Jesse said a few days later) mother did it and then rammed her let into a piece of metal. Mother tells it like something shot out and impailed her leg. This is not ehat happened but she is fixated on it. The next day Margories son a doctor took mother and jesse to the ER and they cleaned the wound and gave mther some antibiotics to get her home then they told her to go to the ER here to get it seen again. She came home looking like she had aged 10 years in the 6 days they were gone. Thar was wednesday the 26th. The next morning Mother went to the ER and they gave her a perscription which she filled. So She took it that morning and at night, then she misplaced it without telling me. She went without the antibiotic for 4 days and on Monday I had t rush my little Sedona to the vet because she seemed to be having trouble urinitating, I was worried she might have sistitus. I asked a friend if female cats got it because I thought only makes got it. While we were finishing up at the vets mother complained that her leg was really hurting. She pulled up her pants leg and way beyond the bandage it was red and swolled and hot. I told her she better go to the ER and it eas at that time she told me she didn't have here antibiotics because she was out to lunch with the girls and she left her purse on the table the someone stole the antibiotic out of her purse. Well first of all mother did not go out with anyone on saturday, she never ever leaves her purse anywhere, she misplaced her antibiotics in the house and they turned up weeks later as did the aricept her former doctor perscribed her. When she got up that morning she went shopping at the market and bought friuts and vegies as well as some frozed dinnes and canned goods and crackers. Then instead of driving home she drove herself to the ER and they kept her there and admitted her. The infetion had gone deep tissue Selutitus (sp?) and she was hospitalized for 4 days. The nurses told me she was very confused and would sit out in the hall and ask when she was going to her room 427. She was sitting in front of the rom 427 that she had just come out of. The nurses told me she was very confused. She wanted to come home and got up and stripped the bed. I convinced her that she had to stay in the hospital because of the 9nfection and they needed to get in under control before she could come home. Also her car was parked in the parking lot of the hospital. I did not have a car. Norma and I talked a couple of times on the phone and then she called and said she would take me down to get mothers car and I could visit her. It all worked out and I met the doctor that was seeing her and he said some things infront of mother that were obviously making her upset. But he said she was very confused and the alzheimers was very progressed. he indicated that he didn't know why she wasn't under medication for alzheimers. I told him her doctor retired and didn't address my concerns about it. But when she had the breakdown in July the ER doctor diagnised her. But she wasn't on any meds yet. Little did I know her doctor did perscribe aricept but she didn't take it, but she filled the perscription. The next day I got a call from the hospital saying they were closing that wing and they were releasing mother so I needed to come down and pick her up. Of course they called while I was sleping and I didn't get it until the afternoon when I woke up. I got there and the nrse told me everything mother had done and how confused she was. She gave me a list of doctors for mother's regular gp and the wound care center for her wound and the information for the home care nurse. When the home care nurse from Gentiva came the first thing she said to me with mother standing right there was this is not your mother. The sooner you can get that settles in your brain the easier this will be for you. She had taken csare of hr father in law who was in the same stage as mother and he only lived 8 months more. I asked all the doctors, How can she be this bad off into Alzheimers and be so "ON" when she is in the office or shoping or visiting with her friends? Then 10 minutes she starts babling and making no sense. I am the only one that sees that side of her. She is mean and nasty to me. She starts arguements and yells at me and when I reach a certain level of frustration yess back at her. Then she says I am always yelling at her. This is the ultimate catch 22 damned if I do and damned if I don't. She has tried to hit me a couple more times bringing it to 3 times now. I always step out of her reach which makes her madder. I was told be the nurse that mother was not to drive anymore. I would have to take over her meds and keep her away from them. Making sure she takes them. I am not up in the morning since she gets up about 2 hours after I go to bed. I can't sleep at night. I think it was from all I went through loosing my home of 29 years and my business of 39 years and some of my babies. Then stepping into this situation like stepping out of the pan and into the fire. This is more like living in hell and no way out. Mother is angry all the time I have noticed there are patterns to her behavior. It goes like when she is most like former self and that can last a couple of hours to a day or two the next phase is the totally hostil, combative, angry phase. This is when she has tried to hit me. it can be over something simple but she blows it up into something else. That can last a day or more, sometimes several days. Then she is like little girl lost. She talks like a little grl and laughs like a little girl sort of a giggle. These are the times when she will come and ask me when she is going home. I tell her she is home or Where do yu think you are? She says this looks like my hme but there are differences. One time I told her to go into her bedroom and look in the drawer with her pajamas and if they were folded the way she folds them, she would know that this is her home. She did it but still wasn't convinced this was her home. That phase usually only lasts a day. Then she is back to angry and when she tries to hit me Then back to actine mre like my mother would act. I have also noticed that she is more confident when she is in this phase. But then comes the mean and nasties. The first 7 months I weas here she was in the mean and nasties. Threating me and yelling at me, telling me if I don't like it I can just leave. Telling me she is going to call th cmpany and see how it is I got pout in this position of authority over her. I tell her thee is no company and thee is just the doctors and nurse. They have told me you can't drive, I have to have control of your meds, I can't leave you alone. If I did and something happened I would be in trouble for leaving you alone. She always says, well we'll see about that. She tells me she is going to call the police and see how it is I got this responsibility. I told her it isn't an emergency and they can't help you with that call your doctor.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Something Seems Wrong
I am going to go back as far as I can remember. I had been married to my business and very busy with making product, filling orders and doing Craft Shows both locally and and in Northern California and Arizona. I say this becuse my being so busy may have caused me to not notice what was happening wth my Mother. It was little things at first that easily could have been just ageing. Forgetting things now and then. Having a hard time remembering simple things, names of favorite places. It seemed to come and go so I really didn't think much of it. Mother would remark on how she didn't like this or that and it seemed out of character but again I let it go to just ageing. Afterall I noticed other older people doing the same things and they were around my mothers age. It wasn't until around 5 or more years ago that I noticed different things she would do instead of doing the mail. She would complaine about the mail. There was so much of it. She seemed to not be able to seperate the junk mail from the bills and information on accounts and things. I was coming here 5 times a year and spending around 9 days with her each time. I noticed she laid all her mail on the dinningroom table and the kitchen table and the island in the kitchen and also on the kitchen counter. I started taking more notice and gave her some pointers on doing this better, because some of these things were bills and needed to be paid. She would have people coming over so she would gather all this mail and put it in a plastic bag and hang it on a hanger in the guest bedroom closet. When I came over here there could be anywhere from 5 to 16 bags hanging. She wasn't going back and dealing with these bags of mail. On one visit I asked her what was in them and she told me the paperwork from the table. Now about this same time she was beginning to miss payments and telling the company she didn't get the statements. She got the statements and they were in one of those bags. Important things like registration renewal on her car, credit card payments. Information she had requested on appliances, all kinds of things. She started asking me to help her and if we had some time I would. She always got upset and didn't want to continue. I found some bags in 2006 that were dated 2004. So this had been going on way longer than I had thought. The three year mark is when I started noticing there seemed to be a serious problem. She always remembered the local craft show I sold at for18 years at that time. When she came to San Diego to visit her friend in Lake San Marcos she would alway make a surprise visit to the Bazaar to see me. She liked the people that ran the Bazaar and some of my friends there. Suddenly she couldn't remember the name Seaside Bazaar, 18 years is a long time. When I was going out of town I would always write her with the dates and places I was going to be. She started loosing things all the time, keys, glasses, shopping lists and the desire to do the things she used to love to do. She developed a I don't really care attitude. This is totally not my Mother. She is a Leo and a go getter.
I made the suggestion about 3 years ago that she talk to her doctor about this since it had been going on for awhile and not getting any better even with help and suggestions. I said it might be Alzheimers. Well she went off on how horrible that was for me to suggest. I said if your doctor ran the tests to determine if it is or perhaps something else then you would know and could deal with it. If it was not Alzheimers then it would be ruled out and since she was having some trouble with medication for her high blood pressure it just might have something to do with her meds. She had her physical coming up and she told him what I had said. Later she said he was angry that I would bring that up at all. I had my doubts as to whether she actually asked him or just made it up. I also noticed she made up things all the time. Stories out of reality. She would tell things about my Brother and me that were not true and I being me would chime right up and say that never happened. Well the MRI as I now know is the test for Alzheimers was never done and things got progressively worse and worse. Mother was less and less herself. My visits were straigned at times and we would argue. Two of those visits a year were to do my buying at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. The big show was in Feb. and the smaller one on Sept. She wanted to do other things and I would say you don't have to go with me but I am here to do my buying. Sometimes I would go by myself if she wasn't feeling like going. It is alot of walking and after her hip replacement she gets tired easily.
I had been injured 2 times in car accidents. In 1995 A guy rearended my car while I was stopped at a signal. He tried to lane change just before me hit me but there was a car there. He hit me in the passanger side rear bumber. This threw me sideways in the seat and my foot came off the brake and he push rolled me into the woman in front of me. This left me with 1 bulging disk that in a little time my body ate, like little pac mans. By 2002 the disk above it was also gone. Now in Feb of 2003 the vendor at the local show I do, that sets up across the isle from me backed into me pinning my legs between the rear bumper of my car and her van. After pinning me she tried to come on back more. Her van was filled eith her product so she couldn't see out the rear window and her side mirrors were useless. I ended up out of work for 7 months and being self employed it hit hard. I refied my home in 02 with no intentions of doing it again. But that money ran out in 2 months of not working after the injury and I had to refi again. I didn't take enough out of equity and that money ran ut in the slowest time on 04. I got ripped off on the lawsuite in 05 and was left still owing so another refi. That one hurt but I could do it. In 06 I got in trouble and refied the last time to save the house while I sold it. The market did what it did and the house went upside down then the ecomony went to and that was it. I lost the house and my business as well. Now I am disabled on Social Security and SSI. In california I got $927.00 a month and having to come to Arizona It was cut to $673.00 because Arizona does not pay anything into SSI, California at that time paid in $233.00 a month.
I added all that because it is relevant to my Mothers condition. She tried to help but it was a waste of money because it only prolonged the enevitable. This all had a big impact on her. Her situation was bad and this happening to me made it worse. She started to have these panic attacks. She would wake up and she said it seemed like there was no oxygen in the room. She has airconditioning that is on all the time circulating the air and a fan right over her bed. Plus she keeps her bathroonm window open a bit and one window with bars on it also open a crack. When this happened her blood pressure would shoot up dramatically and then as she rested in the ER it would come down to normal. She was given Blood pressure medication but she didn't like it so she would back herself off of it. The pharmasist told her how to do it.
I stayed with a friend while I packed my life up in boxes and put it all in storage. I got a tiny bit of help from friends but I did 90% of it. I hired guys in the neighborhood to help me with the heavy stuff. Then I did my own Bankruptcy and 3 days after I got my first SSI check my friend told me her father was coming to make repairs on her mobil for the section 8 and I had to leave becaue of him. I had no place to go. I talked to my mother and she invited us (me, my dog, and my cats) to stay with her until I got things straightened out. I didn't want to but I had no other option. I thought at the time it would only be for 3 weeks to 2 months. I had saved 1,800 for the move into a rental. It cost me 1,100 just to get here. I had 700 left. I rented a fullsize cargo van to move my things from my friends to Mothers in Az. A friend was going to meet me at my friends and we would turn in the van and pack her car and my van with the ret of the stuff, but she got a migraine so I had to keep the van longer. I frantically packed it with what I had left. Plants, the rest of the cats and cages, my bricks and the rest of my things. There was very little left for me to take in my van when I got back from this last trip with the rented van. I was exhausted and in serious pain and my back and my feet were once again numb. I have been told one wrong move and I could be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.
My Mother asked if she could ride back to San Diego with me and I said sure. We had no sooner pasted the checkpoint right outside of Yuma when the freeway became a parkinglot for over an hour. There was a horrific accident and two life flight helicopters had to land to take the seriously injured to the hospital. I had to call the car rental and tell them I couldn't bring the van in until the morning. They told me I wouldn't be charged as long as I could get it in by 10am. So there we are in San Diego and not prepared to stay overnight. We made a quick visit to Target to get some makeup and lotions and a few snacks. Then we went to dinner and got the motel 6 room and I had brought my laptop so I could check in on some things. Motel 6 had internet so I was set.
On the drive to San Diego mother kept telling me she had not been here for years. When my father was ill she would drive him to scripts in LaJolla for tests. He had the worst rhuimatroid arthritus all over his body. It was sudden onset due to the health problems he went through in WW1. The would put him up in a hospital room and do tests so they could learn from him to help others.
Now in the first thing my Mother said to me when I brought the first load of my personal things and the cats and their cages was, don't take anything out of that van it is all going to storage in the morning. I got out of the van and said great mother so you want me to put my cats and the personal things I need every day into storage? She never once asked me how I felt or how the trip was or anything. This was only the beginning of the most horrific situation I could imagine. She was mean and nasty to me and wouldn't letme put my food in the frig. I had to keep it in my travel cooler. She let me use one small shelf in the door of her freezer so I could rotate my cold packs. I had to unload the van and head back the next day. I was exhausted and it was extreamly hard. All the time mother kept bitching at me over this and that. I had told her over and over on the phone just wht I was going to bring and she said why don't you put it in your storage. My storage was full. She said it didn't matter on the phone but when I got here it did most deffinately matter. I felt like I was on a ride at an amusement park that spins you one way and then another way. My emotions were raw from the loss of my home and business. I had to give up about 7 cats I totally didn't want to give up. I had nightmears about all of it every night.
Mother would agrue with me and told me over and over I said I would only be here 3 weeks. I sat down when I finally got back here in my van with mother and my dog and figured out how much I had spent. With the extra days of the van, gas, paying a friend to come help me load the heavy stuff 2 times, it cost me 1,100 dollars and I ony had 700 left. I came out to talk to mother about this with tears flowing. I could tell I was not wanted here and was very nervous. I told her at 100 a month going back into the moving fund it would take me 11 months to repay it all. She said, Oh thats OK I figured you would be here for 2 years or so. You could have knocked me off the chair with a feather I was so amazed. I thoght she would gt mad and tell me no you have to go. I actually told her I couldn't let the cats stay in cages that long. At my friends home the cats were on her back porch and they couldn't get out. Here they could get out while I cleaned the cages. I let them out one cage each night. I had to close the door leading from the garage to the house because of the security system. Mother got more and more nasty to me and threatened to kick me out many times. She was so confused about her mail thing and complained about it anfd everything else. She told me none of the friends would come over because I was here. I found out later from one of her friends that it was the Alzheimers that kept them way. She would cancell the last minute on the pokino and bunko games and the other women got tired of it. Mother never stopped complaining about me the cats and my dog even though she clained to love them all as much as I did. She would open the garage door a crack for them and open the door to the house so the cool air could get in. Mother tried to hit me one day because I asked if I could have the top shelf of the frig for my milk, juice and coffee. I got this it;s my frig and my house and you will do what I say in my house. I asked her what that had to do with me needing to keep my mile and juice from spoiling? Thats when she tried to hit me. It was no problem stepping back to avoid her. She was irrational and down right mean all the time. I had to make a trip to San Diego in April becuse I had to go to the post office to change my address to mothers. I didn't want to but they wouldn't let my friend pick up my mail any longer and send it to me in an envelope that I repaid for her. I paid storage and did a couple of other things in town. We drove to my friends house first when we got into town to get the rest of my mail and they invited us to stay for dinner. It was nice. The thing that amazed me was that mother and I had just made this trip in January and she kept saying she hadn't been here for so long. reminded her we had just made this trip in Jan. She got angry with me and went on reminising about how she and her family would come out here for vacations. She was talking aboug out in an area that had nothing around it. I asked her where they stayed and she said they would drive out and drive back in 1 day. Thats amazing because aat the time they lived in San Gabrial and it would take most of a day just to get where we were. It was seless to tell her that couldn't possible happen becuse of the distance.
We stayed at the Motel 6 again becuse they are dog friendly there. The place in Hotel Circle was quite nice for a Motel 6. We went to breakfast and did the errands and got a really late start back. I told her maybe it would be better to stay over and staart back the next morning but she wanted to get back and my cats wuld be out of water most likely if we did that. She drive a little bit and I drove the rest of the trip. She paid for some of the gas but I paid the most.
When I first came here mother had a small car and she kept hitting her head on it when she tried to get in and out. She traded it in for a Cadallic mini van which is what we took on the trip in April. Then shortly after that she turned it in and got the ford taurus. It is a miserble uncomfortable car to drive for me. It turned out in switching cars 3 and all the missed and late payments her credit had gone from top, best credit to the bottom. They almost wouldn't let her finance the ford. She was getting nasty phone calls from companies demanding payments. I tried to helpher but she just told me it is none of your business. She decided she didn't like her back which was Wacovia, they took over World Savings. She told me some story about having put 25,000 into an account when she and my father were married and the ban stold the money. Now I do not know of any account where that money wouldn't earn some interest of the 60 some years. But she insisted it was just 25,000. Whe made daily trips to the bank to try to find her money to no avail. Then she suddenly switched banks to Bank of the West. All this time her situation with bills got worse and worse. Mother was also making daily trips to this bank to get her bills all on auto pay. She even scooped up some of my mail and took that too. The bank told her after opening my mail that it wasn't hers. I got it back. Mother told me she had taken everything, credit caards, monthly statements and the only thing she had to cover was things that cropped up. It turned out she didn't take the credit cards and since she wasn't paying them a serious problem was developing and she lost all of them. She didn't takethe security co. staatements so adt turned her into a finance company. I can't help her becuse she won't lete me. She says it is none of your business.
Mother and I seemed to get into alot of arguements. Mother always said I could just find nother place to stay. I pointed out I was stuck here and by that time my van was dead. How ould I go anywhere. Mother kept forgetting to turn the security system off when she came in and it would go off and she would have to call the company to tell them it was a false alarm. I told her they only allow you to do that a few times then they charge you for it or cancell your account. On the 5th of July mother got up and went out to visit my cats in the garage. When you open the back door it triggers the alarm and you only have 2 minutesd to turn it off by entering the code. it goes off for 4 minutes and then shuts itself off but the police are called by that time. I put cotten in my ears to muffle sound and my good ear wan into the pillow and the bad one up. I heard nothing. I had only been asleep for 3 hours. I was awakened by a police may banging on the bedroom door and my dog barking. I got up and went out to see what had happened. Mother was babbling, not able to make any since. The officer asked me if this was normal and I said I suspected Alzheimers but her doctor would not test her. I also told him at times she doesn't make any since but not this bad. Well the fire de[partment came and one of the guys mother knew knelt by her side and asked her questions and she culdn't answer any of them. She knew her name but got confused on her birthday and didn't know her phone number and knew the numbers of her address but not the street name. It was really bad and she kept looking at me and saying it was going to be ok. The officer and fireman took me into the kitchen and asked me a few questions. They took her and I got dressed and took my dog out and ate breakfast and went to the hospital ER. I asked if I could talk to the doctor before I saw mother and they sid they would let me know. I went to see her and she started in on something I must have took out of her purse. I said I just grabbed your purse I didn't look inside it. She said oh sure you did. Then the nurse came to get me and seke me to waite in a room for the doctor. It was Dr. McNaulty and I told him I had suspected Alzheimers for 5 years and her doctor refused to do any test to see if it was. Dr McNaulty said he would order an MRI, blood and urin work up and would give me a sign if it was Alzheimers. When all the tests were done and he came in hours later to tell us the results. Her synthroid seemed to be to high, her blood sugar was 250 and it needed to be 100 and her brain showed the natural ageing for an 85 year old person but there were some abnormalities. As he said this he turned to me and nodded. He said it was advanced but months later after being seen by a neurologist she said moderate Alzheimers. Mothers doctor was leaving his practice claiming personal problems but when he saw the results of the MRI he perscribed Aricept which mother filled the perscription and tehn put the med. in a drawer and never took it.
About a week after mother breakdown on the 5th of July I got woke up and she had a hat on and those big wrap around sunclasses and she was muttering about standing for 4 hours trying to open the back door to the garage. She said it wouldn't open and she went around to try to life the garage door but it was to heavy. It is an automatic garage door openier so I do not think you can life it. She was babling again and it took some time to get that info out of her. I went to the back door, nothing was wrong with it. I asked her to come and show me what was wrong. She stood thee and couldn't turn the locks. She told me she had never done that in her life. I said forst of all you have lived in this hose for 22 years the the locks are the same as you have always he=ad here. So why are you not able to turn them now. I turned them with ease and opened the garage door. She got mad at me. I had asked her since she got up earlier than I did if she could just open the garage door so some of the cool air fron the house could get into the garage, then open the garage door just a crack so the cooler air can get in and turn on the fans (3). She was happy to do this and she loved to visit with the cats and they responded to her lovingly. She was driving to her friends house (Bunny is her name) to watch some game a couple of nights a week. Right after the July 5th imcident she left to go to Bunnies before I got up and didn't leave a note. It got dark and no mother. I was worried but when it got to near her bedtime I got really worried. The only person I know is Bunny so I called her and asked if mother was there. She hesitated and then said she was there. I asked if I could talk to her and she told me mother was going to stay over tonight. I thought that was odd since she lives less than a mile from mothes house. Mother got on the phone and I said a slumber party, and mother said in a troubled voice not really. I asked if she was ok and she said sort of that Bunny and her friend Norma were asking her alot of questions. I said well come home then, you don't have to stay there. She said she didn't feel good enough to drive. So in the morning mother and Bunny went to church together then out to eat and then she came home about the same time I got up. I didn't see Bunny but she called a little later. She said mother was so muh worse than her sister who also had alzheimers. Here sister was on aricept and mother wasn't. Bunny was telling me I could take my cats to a no kill shelter and I informed here these are my babies and i am not giving them up. I have had to give up some I totally didn't want to. The next morning (monday) Bunny called again and it seems that right after our conversation she called animal control and told them I wasn't taking care of my dog or caats. Then she called Adult Protective Services and told them I made my mother take care of my cats and took money from her and other things. Then she called the office to Sun City here and told them that mothe had 16 cats in her house. Well the asociation said mother had to get rid of all the cats unless there was some condition, I wrote the letter in esponse and sent it cirtified mail with a return receipt detailing that the cats were mine and not mothers. The cats were in large condo cages in mothers garage and I was able to keep the temp in there lower that outside. Animal control came and took one look at my dog Molly and said you don't have any trouble here your dog is in perfect shape. Molly, when I opened the door so she could come out, she sat down right in front of the animal control men like a perfectly well trained dog. Then I quickly ran them through my process for keeping it cool in the garage and told them the organizations and names of people I worked with in those organizations, The Farel Cat Coalition, The Humane Society and the Shelter. They walked out into the garage and a big guy said I can't believe how cool it is in here. It was 88 in the garage and 106 outside. I said I work at it to keep it this cool I have a system. The only thing they said was I needed to get Molly registered in Tucson Az. if i am going to stay here. I told them I didn't know but mothere condition was preventing me from leaving.
Mother had planned a trip to New York for a family wedding and she was in no condition to fly alone. I asked my younger son to go with her if he could and he said he was on break and the next session didn't start until a few days after they would get back. Mother asked me to book his flight because she had never done that in her life. Mother usee to be a Travel Agent with a company in Woodland Hills and was topnotch. She booked the flights for the Doobie Brothers. Chet Akins and his wife used to come in with their big red afgans and mother saw tickled pink. Her boss tried to poision her one day. The woman had it in for Mother for some reason. Mother waas very god at her job but she kept having serious stomach pains and went to the ER and they told her there was poision in her system. I do not believe it but she didn't sue that woman. I would have put here in prision faster than you could say poision.
I made the suggestion about 3 years ago that she talk to her doctor about this since it had been going on for awhile and not getting any better even with help and suggestions. I said it might be Alzheimers. Well she went off on how horrible that was for me to suggest. I said if your doctor ran the tests to determine if it is or perhaps something else then you would know and could deal with it. If it was not Alzheimers then it would be ruled out and since she was having some trouble with medication for her high blood pressure it just might have something to do with her meds. She had her physical coming up and she told him what I had said. Later she said he was angry that I would bring that up at all. I had my doubts as to whether she actually asked him or just made it up. I also noticed she made up things all the time. Stories out of reality. She would tell things about my Brother and me that were not true and I being me would chime right up and say that never happened. Well the MRI as I now know is the test for Alzheimers was never done and things got progressively worse and worse. Mother was less and less herself. My visits were straigned at times and we would argue. Two of those visits a year were to do my buying at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. The big show was in Feb. and the smaller one on Sept. She wanted to do other things and I would say you don't have to go with me but I am here to do my buying. Sometimes I would go by myself if she wasn't feeling like going. It is alot of walking and after her hip replacement she gets tired easily.
I had been injured 2 times in car accidents. In 1995 A guy rearended my car while I was stopped at a signal. He tried to lane change just before me hit me but there was a car there. He hit me in the passanger side rear bumber. This threw me sideways in the seat and my foot came off the brake and he push rolled me into the woman in front of me. This left me with 1 bulging disk that in a little time my body ate, like little pac mans. By 2002 the disk above it was also gone. Now in Feb of 2003 the vendor at the local show I do, that sets up across the isle from me backed into me pinning my legs between the rear bumper of my car and her van. After pinning me she tried to come on back more. Her van was filled eith her product so she couldn't see out the rear window and her side mirrors were useless. I ended up out of work for 7 months and being self employed it hit hard. I refied my home in 02 with no intentions of doing it again. But that money ran out in 2 months of not working after the injury and I had to refi again. I didn't take enough out of equity and that money ran ut in the slowest time on 04. I got ripped off on the lawsuite in 05 and was left still owing so another refi. That one hurt but I could do it. In 06 I got in trouble and refied the last time to save the house while I sold it. The market did what it did and the house went upside down then the ecomony went to and that was it. I lost the house and my business as well. Now I am disabled on Social Security and SSI. In california I got $927.00 a month and having to come to Arizona It was cut to $673.00 because Arizona does not pay anything into SSI, California at that time paid in $233.00 a month.
I added all that because it is relevant to my Mothers condition. She tried to help but it was a waste of money because it only prolonged the enevitable. This all had a big impact on her. Her situation was bad and this happening to me made it worse. She started to have these panic attacks. She would wake up and she said it seemed like there was no oxygen in the room. She has airconditioning that is on all the time circulating the air and a fan right over her bed. Plus she keeps her bathroonm window open a bit and one window with bars on it also open a crack. When this happened her blood pressure would shoot up dramatically and then as she rested in the ER it would come down to normal. She was given Blood pressure medication but she didn't like it so she would back herself off of it. The pharmasist told her how to do it.
I stayed with a friend while I packed my life up in boxes and put it all in storage. I got a tiny bit of help from friends but I did 90% of it. I hired guys in the neighborhood to help me with the heavy stuff. Then I did my own Bankruptcy and 3 days after I got my first SSI check my friend told me her father was coming to make repairs on her mobil for the section 8 and I had to leave becaue of him. I had no place to go. I talked to my mother and she invited us (me, my dog, and my cats) to stay with her until I got things straightened out. I didn't want to but I had no other option. I thought at the time it would only be for 3 weeks to 2 months. I had saved 1,800 for the move into a rental. It cost me 1,100 just to get here. I had 700 left. I rented a fullsize cargo van to move my things from my friends to Mothers in Az. A friend was going to meet me at my friends and we would turn in the van and pack her car and my van with the ret of the stuff, but she got a migraine so I had to keep the van longer. I frantically packed it with what I had left. Plants, the rest of the cats and cages, my bricks and the rest of my things. There was very little left for me to take in my van when I got back from this last trip with the rented van. I was exhausted and in serious pain and my back and my feet were once again numb. I have been told one wrong move and I could be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.
My Mother asked if she could ride back to San Diego with me and I said sure. We had no sooner pasted the checkpoint right outside of Yuma when the freeway became a parkinglot for over an hour. There was a horrific accident and two life flight helicopters had to land to take the seriously injured to the hospital. I had to call the car rental and tell them I couldn't bring the van in until the morning. They told me I wouldn't be charged as long as I could get it in by 10am. So there we are in San Diego and not prepared to stay overnight. We made a quick visit to Target to get some makeup and lotions and a few snacks. Then we went to dinner and got the motel 6 room and I had brought my laptop so I could check in on some things. Motel 6 had internet so I was set.
On the drive to San Diego mother kept telling me she had not been here for years. When my father was ill she would drive him to scripts in LaJolla for tests. He had the worst rhuimatroid arthritus all over his body. It was sudden onset due to the health problems he went through in WW1. The would put him up in a hospital room and do tests so they could learn from him to help others.
Now in the first thing my Mother said to me when I brought the first load of my personal things and the cats and their cages was, don't take anything out of that van it is all going to storage in the morning. I got out of the van and said great mother so you want me to put my cats and the personal things I need every day into storage? She never once asked me how I felt or how the trip was or anything. This was only the beginning of the most horrific situation I could imagine. She was mean and nasty to me and wouldn't letme put my food in the frig. I had to keep it in my travel cooler. She let me use one small shelf in the door of her freezer so I could rotate my cold packs. I had to unload the van and head back the next day. I was exhausted and it was extreamly hard. All the time mother kept bitching at me over this and that. I had told her over and over on the phone just wht I was going to bring and she said why don't you put it in your storage. My storage was full. She said it didn't matter on the phone but when I got here it did most deffinately matter. I felt like I was on a ride at an amusement park that spins you one way and then another way. My emotions were raw from the loss of my home and business. I had to give up about 7 cats I totally didn't want to give up. I had nightmears about all of it every night.
Mother would agrue with me and told me over and over I said I would only be here 3 weeks. I sat down when I finally got back here in my van with mother and my dog and figured out how much I had spent. With the extra days of the van, gas, paying a friend to come help me load the heavy stuff 2 times, it cost me 1,100 dollars and I ony had 700 left. I came out to talk to mother about this with tears flowing. I could tell I was not wanted here and was very nervous. I told her at 100 a month going back into the moving fund it would take me 11 months to repay it all. She said, Oh thats OK I figured you would be here for 2 years or so. You could have knocked me off the chair with a feather I was so amazed. I thoght she would gt mad and tell me no you have to go. I actually told her I couldn't let the cats stay in cages that long. At my friends home the cats were on her back porch and they couldn't get out. Here they could get out while I cleaned the cages. I let them out one cage each night. I had to close the door leading from the garage to the house because of the security system. Mother got more and more nasty to me and threatened to kick me out many times. She was so confused about her mail thing and complained about it anfd everything else. She told me none of the friends would come over because I was here. I found out later from one of her friends that it was the Alzheimers that kept them way. She would cancell the last minute on the pokino and bunko games and the other women got tired of it. Mother never stopped complaining about me the cats and my dog even though she clained to love them all as much as I did. She would open the garage door a crack for them and open the door to the house so the cool air could get in. Mother tried to hit me one day because I asked if I could have the top shelf of the frig for my milk, juice and coffee. I got this it;s my frig and my house and you will do what I say in my house. I asked her what that had to do with me needing to keep my mile and juice from spoiling? Thats when she tried to hit me. It was no problem stepping back to avoid her. She was irrational and down right mean all the time. I had to make a trip to San Diego in April becuse I had to go to the post office to change my address to mothers. I didn't want to but they wouldn't let my friend pick up my mail any longer and send it to me in an envelope that I repaid for her. I paid storage and did a couple of other things in town. We drove to my friends house first when we got into town to get the rest of my mail and they invited us to stay for dinner. It was nice. The thing that amazed me was that mother and I had just made this trip in January and she kept saying she hadn't been here for so long. reminded her we had just made this trip in Jan. She got angry with me and went on reminising about how she and her family would come out here for vacations. She was talking aboug out in an area that had nothing around it. I asked her where they stayed and she said they would drive out and drive back in 1 day. Thats amazing because aat the time they lived in San Gabrial and it would take most of a day just to get where we were. It was seless to tell her that couldn't possible happen becuse of the distance.
We stayed at the Motel 6 again becuse they are dog friendly there. The place in Hotel Circle was quite nice for a Motel 6. We went to breakfast and did the errands and got a really late start back. I told her maybe it would be better to stay over and staart back the next morning but she wanted to get back and my cats wuld be out of water most likely if we did that. She drive a little bit and I drove the rest of the trip. She paid for some of the gas but I paid the most.
When I first came here mother had a small car and she kept hitting her head on it when she tried to get in and out. She traded it in for a Cadallic mini van which is what we took on the trip in April. Then shortly after that she turned it in and got the ford taurus. It is a miserble uncomfortable car to drive for me. It turned out in switching cars 3 and all the missed and late payments her credit had gone from top, best credit to the bottom. They almost wouldn't let her finance the ford. She was getting nasty phone calls from companies demanding payments. I tried to helpher but she just told me it is none of your business. She decided she didn't like her back which was Wacovia, they took over World Savings. She told me some story about having put 25,000 into an account when she and my father were married and the ban stold the money. Now I do not know of any account where that money wouldn't earn some interest of the 60 some years. But she insisted it was just 25,000. Whe made daily trips to the bank to try to find her money to no avail. Then she suddenly switched banks to Bank of the West. All this time her situation with bills got worse and worse. Mother was also making daily trips to this bank to get her bills all on auto pay. She even scooped up some of my mail and took that too. The bank told her after opening my mail that it wasn't hers. I got it back. Mother told me she had taken everything, credit caards, monthly statements and the only thing she had to cover was things that cropped up. It turned out she didn't take the credit cards and since she wasn't paying them a serious problem was developing and she lost all of them. She didn't takethe security co. staatements so adt turned her into a finance company. I can't help her becuse she won't lete me. She says it is none of your business.
Mother and I seemed to get into alot of arguements. Mother always said I could just find nother place to stay. I pointed out I was stuck here and by that time my van was dead. How ould I go anywhere. Mother kept forgetting to turn the security system off when she came in and it would go off and she would have to call the company to tell them it was a false alarm. I told her they only allow you to do that a few times then they charge you for it or cancell your account. On the 5th of July mother got up and went out to visit my cats in the garage. When you open the back door it triggers the alarm and you only have 2 minutesd to turn it off by entering the code. it goes off for 4 minutes and then shuts itself off but the police are called by that time. I put cotten in my ears to muffle sound and my good ear wan into the pillow and the bad one up. I heard nothing. I had only been asleep for 3 hours. I was awakened by a police may banging on the bedroom door and my dog barking. I got up and went out to see what had happened. Mother was babbling, not able to make any since. The officer asked me if this was normal and I said I suspected Alzheimers but her doctor would not test her. I also told him at times she doesn't make any since but not this bad. Well the fire de[partment came and one of the guys mother knew knelt by her side and asked her questions and she culdn't answer any of them. She knew her name but got confused on her birthday and didn't know her phone number and knew the numbers of her address but not the street name. It was really bad and she kept looking at me and saying it was going to be ok. The officer and fireman took me into the kitchen and asked me a few questions. They took her and I got dressed and took my dog out and ate breakfast and went to the hospital ER. I asked if I could talk to the doctor before I saw mother and they sid they would let me know. I went to see her and she started in on something I must have took out of her purse. I said I just grabbed your purse I didn't look inside it. She said oh sure you did. Then the nurse came to get me and seke me to waite in a room for the doctor. It was Dr. McNaulty and I told him I had suspected Alzheimers for 5 years and her doctor refused to do any test to see if it was. Dr McNaulty said he would order an MRI, blood and urin work up and would give me a sign if it was Alzheimers. When all the tests were done and he came in hours later to tell us the results. Her synthroid seemed to be to high, her blood sugar was 250 and it needed to be 100 and her brain showed the natural ageing for an 85 year old person but there were some abnormalities. As he said this he turned to me and nodded. He said it was advanced but months later after being seen by a neurologist she said moderate Alzheimers. Mothers doctor was leaving his practice claiming personal problems but when he saw the results of the MRI he perscribed Aricept which mother filled the perscription and tehn put the med. in a drawer and never took it.
About a week after mother breakdown on the 5th of July I got woke up and she had a hat on and those big wrap around sunclasses and she was muttering about standing for 4 hours trying to open the back door to the garage. She said it wouldn't open and she went around to try to life the garage door but it was to heavy. It is an automatic garage door openier so I do not think you can life it. She was babling again and it took some time to get that info out of her. I went to the back door, nothing was wrong with it. I asked her to come and show me what was wrong. She stood thee and couldn't turn the locks. She told me she had never done that in her life. I said forst of all you have lived in this hose for 22 years the the locks are the same as you have always he=ad here. So why are you not able to turn them now. I turned them with ease and opened the garage door. She got mad at me. I had asked her since she got up earlier than I did if she could just open the garage door so some of the cool air fron the house could get into the garage, then open the garage door just a crack so the cooler air can get in and turn on the fans (3). She was happy to do this and she loved to visit with the cats and they responded to her lovingly. She was driving to her friends house (Bunny is her name) to watch some game a couple of nights a week. Right after the July 5th imcident she left to go to Bunnies before I got up and didn't leave a note. It got dark and no mother. I was worried but when it got to near her bedtime I got really worried. The only person I know is Bunny so I called her and asked if mother was there. She hesitated and then said she was there. I asked if I could talk to her and she told me mother was going to stay over tonight. I thought that was odd since she lives less than a mile from mothes house. Mother got on the phone and I said a slumber party, and mother said in a troubled voice not really. I asked if she was ok and she said sort of that Bunny and her friend Norma were asking her alot of questions. I said well come home then, you don't have to stay there. She said she didn't feel good enough to drive. So in the morning mother and Bunny went to church together then out to eat and then she came home about the same time I got up. I didn't see Bunny but she called a little later. She said mother was so muh worse than her sister who also had alzheimers. Here sister was on aricept and mother wasn't. Bunny was telling me I could take my cats to a no kill shelter and I informed here these are my babies and i am not giving them up. I have had to give up some I totally didn't want to. The next morning (monday) Bunny called again and it seems that right after our conversation she called animal control and told them I wasn't taking care of my dog or caats. Then she called Adult Protective Services and told them I made my mother take care of my cats and took money from her and other things. Then she called the office to Sun City here and told them that mothe had 16 cats in her house. Well the asociation said mother had to get rid of all the cats unless there was some condition, I wrote the letter in esponse and sent it cirtified mail with a return receipt detailing that the cats were mine and not mothers. The cats were in large condo cages in mothers garage and I was able to keep the temp in there lower that outside. Animal control came and took one look at my dog Molly and said you don't have any trouble here your dog is in perfect shape. Molly, when I opened the door so she could come out, she sat down right in front of the animal control men like a perfectly well trained dog. Then I quickly ran them through my process for keeping it cool in the garage and told them the organizations and names of people I worked with in those organizations, The Farel Cat Coalition, The Humane Society and the Shelter. They walked out into the garage and a big guy said I can't believe how cool it is in here. It was 88 in the garage and 106 outside. I said I work at it to keep it this cool I have a system. The only thing they said was I needed to get Molly registered in Tucson Az. if i am going to stay here. I told them I didn't know but mothere condition was preventing me from leaving.
Mother had planned a trip to New York for a family wedding and she was in no condition to fly alone. I asked my younger son to go with her if he could and he said he was on break and the next session didn't start until a few days after they would get back. Mother asked me to book his flight because she had never done that in her life. Mother usee to be a Travel Agent with a company in Woodland Hills and was topnotch. She booked the flights for the Doobie Brothers. Chet Akins and his wife used to come in with their big red afgans and mother saw tickled pink. Her boss tried to poision her one day. The woman had it in for Mother for some reason. Mother waas very god at her job but she kept having serious stomach pains and went to the ER and they told her there was poision in her system. I do not believe it but she didn't sue that woman. I would have put here in prision faster than you could say poision.
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