2:00 AM – Sometime between 1:20 and 1:30, I heard a “STOP IT” from upstairs, so I grabbed my phone and went up taking video. I captured about 26 minutes of video. At the end I’m trying to shut it down and get her to go to bed, that backfired and I ended up getting flipped off. Anyway, I’ll try to get that video on here ASAP.
Now, in case anyone thought I was making up Mom talking to herself, here’s some video (I had to really compress the video so it wouldn’t take forever to start playing, but it shouldn’t effect anything. The original was 3 GB, so compression needed to be done. Hopefully you will be able to turn your volume up enough to hear everything, including my quiet comments.):
2:20 AM – I went back upstairs to see if she was getting ready for bed or if she was still talking to invisible people. She was just sitting on her bed and asked me, “So you heard it that time?” I replied that I didn’t hear a thing and she called me a liar. I told her that she needed to go to bed and she walked up to me, turned around and listened. Then she said, “Well, maybe they’ve gathered everyone up and gone home.” So I told her, “Good. Now you can get to bed.” She went down to the bathroom and then back upstairs. Hopefully things will be quiet for the rest of the night.
6:15 AM – Well, I’m guessing I’m not going to get any sleep today, so tonight at work should be hell. The reason I say that is Mom is upstairs on the landing talking to someone that’s not there again.
7:10 AM – I captured 30 minutes of video of her talking to a little girl that’s small enough to fit in her cupped hands. The entire video is her trying to coax this little girl into the palms of her hands. This little girl is apparently petrified of me for unknown reasons and several times Mom threatened to hurt me more than I hurt her if I did anything to her and multiple times threatened to kick me out. So anyway, the video is really dark as there weren’t many lights on and the Iphone camera doesn’t seem to do all that great in low-light situations, although it’s not what you see, but what you hear in this case. I’ll get the video up as soon as I can.
8:30 AM – I think I’m gonna be right about her keeping me up all day. She just came down and asked me if I was hearing that. She was pointing in the direction of the treadmill. I asked her “Hearing what?” She said it was some kind of engine noise and asked if I was feeling better. I let her know “I’m feeling fine…. Now go to bed.” She started back up the stairs and then said, “He’s still doing it!” Me, a little louder and firmer: “GO TO BED.” Yeah, I know, it’s day time, but the craziness really seems to come out when she hasn’t been sleeping, so I’m hoping she’ll sleep today and leave me alone.
10:55 AM – Now Mom is having a “Heart Attack.” I’ve tried to tell her that her heart is in better shape than mine and that she’s been up all freaking night and hasn’t been eating or drinking anything. I tried to give her an Ensure, she got pissed at me and threw it on the floor making a mess everywhere. Fine. She can clean up the mess. I’m going to end up having to call in to work tonight because of her shit. There’s no way I can make it all night without any sleep. Btw, I ended up going out and cleaning up the mess before it destroyed the wood floor and taking her blood pressure. It was a bit high, but she hadn’t taken her meds yet today and she was crying and stressed at the time, so nothing unusual. Her pulse looked normal as well. While doing that, she was out there calling for Jerry Feester. His name used to be Fessler, then changed to Feesler and now it’s Feester, so I don’t believe it’s a real person, or it’s someone from her long ago past that she’s changed to fit into her life now somehow. I just got a “He’s my best friend. I used to tend bar with him. He’s the Chief Of Police in Ligonier (The Chief is Bryan K. Shearer according to Ligonier’s website.)
12:15 PM – She seems to be just fine now. I got her to take her meds and helped her fix a bowl of cereal. While doing that, she asked me, “You bar tend here, too?” I just told her that we’re at home. She looked down at the counter and said, “Oh, yeah.” She’s now eating her cereal and talking to invisible people again.
12:50 PM – I’ve been trying to fall asleep, but haven’t been able to because Mom has been carrying on a conversation out in the kitchen. I finally got up and went out and suggested that she go upstairs where it’s warm. She again asked me if I bar tended here, too. I reminded her that we are home and again suggested that she go upstairs where it’s warm and maybe take a nap. I had to guide her to where the stairs where as it didn’t seem she recognized where she was. Once she seen the stairs, she had an Ahh moment and went on up. Maybe I’ll get a couple of hours of sleep. It may not be a good idea to go to work anyway. We shall see I guess.
2:15 PM – I had dozed off for a bit and woke up to Mom leaning over my coffee table. She was rubbing her finger next to a package of shoe laces I had on there and said something about she had something like that before but it’s too cold for her and that I could keep it. Then this really off the wall comment about “You can’t touch me here though.” She was pointing at her crotch. Sorry, threw up a bit in my mouth. Anyway, I told her that maybe she should go upstairs and take a nap. She didn’t say anything, turned around and went up.
5:40 PM – Things have been quiet. I dozed off for about an hour, then my alarm clock woke me up at 5:00. I dozed back off until now and gave up and let my boss know I wasn’t going to make it in tonight. At one time, when I was a lot younger, I could have made it all night on an hour or so of sleep if I had to.
Wow. Alzheimers is really hell; for her and you. It’s so sad to see her like that.
I think for her, it’s probably only hell at the moment. Once the moment has passed, I don’t think she recalls it happening. It is really difficult seeing her like that and without any training in dealing with situations like that, it’s hard to know how to handle it.