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.