Sometimes life is too tough

I have been too overwhelmed by life lately to post anything on this blog. Most of it revolves around the mistreatment of my mom's dementia, but just when you think things can't get worse, they do. Last Friday my husband's cousin (age 56) went to visit her 90-year-old mom who fell and had surgery to repair a broken femur. While in town, she stayed with her brother, and died in her sleep there. She had no history of any illness or heart problem. That makes me want to get serious about living this life that I have, whatever is left.

My mom's situation could be described as comedy of errors, only it's not funny. About a month ago, she got a respiratory cold/flu thing that knocked her out for about a week. Only problem is, lately, when she gets sick, she goes off the wall with hallucinations and disconnected behavior. When she recovers from her short illness, she's fine again. But this time the assisted living place where she lives sent her to her doctor because of her strange behavior. He prescribed an antidepressant, that, in just 4 days, turned her into an out of control psychotic mess. My brother and I told the doctor to take her off the med, which he did. Unfortunately, she had a very rough week after this, as the med left her system. She became aggressive, irritable, and difficult for the staff at the home to manage. So they decided we should bring in a psych professional to help. Ironically, on the day this professional shows up, my mom was finally back on even keel after the anti-depressant misstep.

This new psych nurse practitioner examines my mom, and pronounces that at 77 years old, with no prior history of mental illness, mom is bi-polar. This was quite shocking to my brother and me, who figured we would have known it if mom had a disease this disruptive in our growin up years. But of course, we're only family (and therefore in denial), so we were told to go along with this program.

Mom was put on depakote and risperdol, and after one week, became so out of control, and psychotic that the home sent her to the psych unit at a local hospital. I picked her up there, and the doctor told me - she's not bi-polar, this is dementia. Which is what I had been telling the staff where she lives.

I bring her back to the home, and find out they have made arrangements to ship her out to a psych hospital in Saratoga to treat her bipolar. Naturally, I tell them in no uncertain terms that this is unacceptable, the woman has dementia. I'm told they are the professionals, blah blah, and she needs to get stabilized is she is to come back here. They promise me this place holds the key to getting her back on track.

So I cave, and with my brother, drive her to this hospital. Intake took 4 hours. After an extensive interview with the psychiatrist who will be treating her, she says, "your mom is not biopolar, she has dementia." Well, hallelujah, somebody gets it.

Mom is taken off the meds that rendered her incompetent, but put on haldol to help with hallucinations. Well, by Saturday, she was barely coherent and needed help walking. Today, I go to see her, and she is bedridden, totally psychotic, twitching, and cannot walk or even feed herself. I meet with the doctor, and tell her that this is not the outcome I had in mind. Two weeks ago, before all the meds, she was a functioning person, albeit with some dementia. But she could function. I spent a good part of the afternoon trying to comfort my mom, but I don't think she really even knew I was there. Obviously, I was livid. So I informed the doctors and nurses of the new game plan: she is to be taken off all psych meds, so that they could see what they were really working with. They did agree, miraculously. But what the hell - how can a medical professional not see that turning an elderly person into a vegetable is not a desirable outcome? What it comes down to is that nobody wants to deal with the weaning off process, when she will become combative and difficult. But if a psychiatric hospital can't deal with this, then who can? I have warned them that once she comes around, she will be panicked and difficult. The doc prescribed an anti-anxiety med that will hopefully help her get through this.

I am so drained with fighting the medical system - and very discouraged at what the future holds for our generation. What will they do when millions of people like this show up at their doors? I've tried unsuccessfully to get mom into a geriatrician. Apparently there is a critical shortage of this specialty, because there's no money in it. If there's a shortage now, what happens in 10, 20 years? I am so exhausted from living this nightmare, but there seems to be no end in sight.

Fixed it!

So my Twitter feed is back to the real me again. That was weird!
Thanks to all for the encouraging comments on yesterday's post. I'm hoping I'll find the right trail riding buddy for me.

Error on the site!

In case anybody checks, the Twitter update on this blog is not my twitter account! I don't know what happened, but I'll have to try and figure out how to change it back to my account. How strange is that!

Way too cold!

Today was way too cold for March 23. It was 16F degrees at 7:30 when I went out to feed the horses. Yikes! And there's been a strong north wind all day, just making things lovely. The horses have their winter blankets on. But it's going to get warmer starting tomorrow, so there's relief in sight.

To clarify yesterday's post (sorry Claire in the UK), my alma mater, Siena College, was playing in the national college basketball championships. NCAA is the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and this tournament is nicknamed "March Madness" here in the States. It is a very big deal, and many people (including Pres. Obama) follow the games religiously. For the sports-minded, it's all that people are talking about these days. It's a big accomplishment for a school (especially a small school) to even make it to the tournament. So that explains my little bragging session yesterday.

Back to horse stuff, I'm starting to browse horse sites to see what's for sale out there. I've decided a need solid horse that will always be ready to go, with no spookiness or issues. Noble is like that, but she's 29, so I can't work her too hard. I need a younger version of her, nothing fancy, just a sane, reliable mount who will take care of me.

The Cinderella Saints

My big excitement in the past couple of days was to watch my alma mater, Siena College go to the NCAA tournament and actually win the first game. I stayed up way too late watching it on Friday night, because it went to 2 overtimes, and Siena ended up winning in the final seconds of the second overtime. Truly exciting!
Tonight they played the nation's top team, Louisville, and gave them a game. The final score was 79-72, but Siena was ahead by 4 points at one time. The fact that Siena (with only 3,000 students) held their own against the best team in the country is a victory in itself. For this old-time cheerleader, it was really exciting, something I could never have dreamed of when I was a student back in the 70s.

Thanks!

Thanks to one and all for your thoughtful comments on my situation with Sailor. Basically the situation is this: last year, she threw me on 2 occasions, both times uncalled for. The first time she was upset because we had ridden back home, away from a yearling colt she wanted to visit with (we were just riding in my arena, when she suddenly blew up. I bailed, and she ran back down the road to her honey). Second time we (and other riders) got caught in a cloud of deer flies. Obviously it was distressing. Her headshaking (and she was wearing a bonnet) kept getting more violent, then suddenly turned to a massive buck. And I was airborne. She ran into some nearby woods, where her best buddy horse had just walked into. When she gets flustered, her brain just shuts down.

Part of the problem is no consistent work. When I got her back from training a couple of years ago, she was the perfect horse. No issues whatsoever. But after a winter layoff, she was back to square one. With consistent work several times a week, she is an amazing and pleasureable horse to ride. But unfortunately, my life does not allow for that. I really need a horse (like Noble) that will always be ready to ride, even if it's been a couple of months. Sailor has a very sweet personality, but she needs someone who will keep her in consistent work. She also needs a stronger leader than I am.

You're tuned to WMUD - All mud, all the time

So mud season is officially upon us. All I can say is thank god for muck boots. Without my trusty muck boots, there is no way I would go out in that oozy, fetid, cesspool of ankle-deep mud and manure. I feel bad putting the horses out in it, but there is no choice. At least when they leave the small paddock behind the barn, they can get to some areas that aren't as deep in mud. Right now the wind is blowing like crazy, so maybe it will wick some of the moisture out of the ground. Let's hope - because the temperature is dropping into the 20s tonight so any water out there will freeze. Is there any end to this?

I had a good conversation with my farrier the other day about my future (or maybe not) with Sailor. I'm seriously considering looking for another horse, one I know that I can depend on and will take care of me in my old age. However, I am committed to finding the right home for Sailor, where I know she will be well cared for. This is a scary thing for me to contemplate, because I am very fond of Sailor, who is sweet, but I know that I am not a confident enough rider to give her the confidence she needs to keep us both safe. I guess that's why my relationship with Noble has worked for almost 12 years: she's an alpha mare, super-confident, and just assumes she has to take care of things because I'm useless. While that's made for some arguments, when push comes to shove, she always does the right thing and never endangers me. Unfortunately, Sailor thinks of herself first. Anybody else have some thoughts on this process?

Recovery time

I haven't been on the computer much the past few days because I've been so sick. I mean sick like I haven't been in years. In spite of getting a flu shot, I came down with a god-awful flu that knocked me totally out of commission. The sort of thing where you're either in bed or on the couch, because anything more than that is way too exhausting. I've still got a bit of the nasty hacking cough, but my energy level is returning and the shooting pains through my arms & legs have stopped. Just in time to take care of my husband, who came home from work early with the same thing! So now he has staked a claim on the couch, and I will be responsible for horses, etc.

I actually didn't see the horses from last Friday AM until this morning. They seemed moderately excited to see me, but I think they were hoping for some hay. What they did get was a visit from the farrier, which wasn't what they had in mind. While it's not their idea of a good time, they were their usual good selves for him (which I appreciate, because he's probably the best farrier around here and I'd die if I lost him).

I'm still undecided about going back to work tomorrow, because even slight activity still tires me out. So I'll play it by ear and see how I feel tomorrow morning.

Having a heat wave

It was 25 degrees out when I went to work this morning, and it felt downright balmy. I didn't button my coat, and just enjoyed walking outside in the sun. But that was just a teaser, because tomorrow it's supposed to go up into the 40's. The downside is that there will be rain and maybe sleet. That's the northeast - you have to pick between cold and sunny or warm and rainy/snowy.

The girls are famous!

I sent the photo from yesterday's post in to our local ABC-TV affiliate (Ch. 10 in Albany) and they put it on the air during a weather segment. So Noble and Sailor got their 30 seconds of TV fame. Thanks to weatherman Steve Caporizzo for putting us on the air.

Enough snow!

I should have gone into work today, but as you can see from this photo, the weather was uncooperative. As bad as the snow is here, it was even worse in southern Vermont, where I work. So it was a very boring day, too much time on Twitter and other such nonsense. Notice that the horses are eternal optimists, grazing in spite of the snow cover.

Trying out the Ping thing. Sort of one-stop shopping for social networks.