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| Hmmm, Delusions, Hallucinations, Dreams??
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Didn't really know what to call this one.............
Just going back to mom's many delusions, hallucinations, dreams, didn't know where to begin, so thought about a list of her characters.
1. The most vivid is the "werewolf". She woke up one morning and all was normal. A couple hours later, she told me that she was turning into an ape. I laughed and told her no, that wasn't going to happen. She started snarling and growling at me. She also decided that it's happened before and she might actually be turning into a werewolf. We went shopping right after she started this idea this morning, and she snarled and made faces and barked at me for the first 15 minutes that we were in the car. After we got hamburgers, she got quiet and started eating. She talked about how pretty the clouds were and the different kinds of cars, so I thought the werewolf episode was over. A few minutes later, just as we got to the store, she told me that if she did something that scared me, I was to immediately stop the car, jump out and lock her in the car and go for help. She never did get out of the car to shop with me, thought she might turn into a werewolf while we were in the stores. About 3-4 hours after this began, I asked her if she wanted to go into Wal-Mart with me, she said yes. Arriving at Wal-Mart, she changed her mind, said she might do something to embarrass or scare me, so she'd better stay in the car. I went in to the store, came out 30 minutes later and gave her a candy bar. She never mentioned being a werewolf again. This episode lasted 6 hours. My friend Janice says I should have gotten her a big cross and some garlic and told her that as long as she had these things, she couldn't be a werewolf.
2. Two weeks later. Mom woke up fine, went to the bathroom. Came out and sat at the table with husband, "I'm turning into a WITCH!!!!!!" She had the voice and snarl of a witch this time, convinced that she was turning into a witch and we'd better watch out!!! My husband is so hilarious!!!! He said, "Mom you can't be a witch, you have red hair, everyone knows that all witches have black hair." Also told her that she'd need a cauldron if she was a witch. Then said "you can't be a witch, you don't have any black pointy shoes". He is so funny.
3. We have woods and a swamp behind our house, very small area, but you can't see the houses on the other side of the "swamp" a block away. Mom is convinced that it is a jungle and we have wild animals in the jungle back there, bears especially. When she first moved in, she just knew that Indians or Spanish Conquistadors or black men were going to be coming out of the woods. Thought she'd see skeletons of Spanish Conquistadors hanging from the trees or Indians. She is all the time seeing people or animals in the woods or coming out of them. Recently, there was "a man in the woods, wait no, it's a man on a motorcycle, he's getting closer, no it's a bear, uh oh, you'd better lock the doors".
4. Another time it was Aliens, "you'd better lock the doors, they're coming, you'd better lock the doors, they're coming".
5. One morning, mom, husband and I were sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast. Somehow we got on the subject of "who am I"? We have a little dog, Buddy. Mom said, "I think I am his mother". I am thinking that mom thinks she is Buddy's mommy like I call myself Buddy's mommy and husband calls himself Buddy's daddy, it's a pet owner thing. OH NO!!!! I get mom in the shower and out, toweled off and help her get dressed. She thinks she is actually a woman in a dog's body and is ACTUALLY BUDDY'S REAL MOMMY, A DOG......
6. One night she woke me up in a panic!!!!!! She told me that Burt Reynolds came and got her to tell her that the children were on the bottom of the pool. I told her that my youngest daughter was upstairs in bed and that my oldest daughter didn't live here anymore, but that she was in bed, it was probably 2-3 in the morning. She insisted that it must be "Doug's" children then. Doug is my brother that died in 1981, was married, but had no children. I explained that Doug had no children. Then she went back to it being my children. Had to take mom outside to convince her that it was a dream, that there was no pool and that the children were alright. She came back inside and got back in bed, but told me that Burt Reynolds was probably going to come get her up again and she was going to get me up again if he did.
7. New Years Eve, 2006, mom and I and husband went out to dinner and a movie, we were home by 8 PM. Got mom in her nightgown and settled in her chair watching the ball drop in New York City. I sat in the living room with husband watching football until 9:30 then went to bed myself, husband stayed in his easy chair. I woke up at 1:30 AM, heard husband asking mom if she needed the bathroom. No, there was a party and she'd come home to get me and take me back, husband went to bed, I got up. Mom insisted (because of the party on TV), that she had been at a party next door, she'd left her drink and a sandwich and had come home to get me to take me back with her to the party. I think she thought I was her sister instead of daughter. She and Aunt Sandy has "a great time" during World War II, with all the American and British soldiers at the air bases in South Florida, they apparently were quite popular with the "boys". Anyway, I kept explaining that there was no party and that it was the TV. I turned down her covers and left the room. She made up the bed and headed out again to "the party". I corralled her back into her room and turned down her covers. She made up the bed again and headed out to "the party". Finally I got frustrated and said, "mom, there is no party, it was the TV and you are dreaming, I'm going to bed". She flat out told me that she "was going back to the party anyway, by herself"!!!!! I deadlocked the doors and stood just inside my bedroom to see what she would do. Guess what, she unlocked them anyway. I went out and opened the doors to show her, "mom it's 2 AM, it's all dark outside, the neighbor's lights are out, there is no party, you were watching the party on TV". Deflatedly, she finally believed me, went back to her room and got in bed. It was soooo sad, I really wish there had been a party!!!!!!
8. We now have child-proof doorknob covers on the 3 outside doors and the door between the two living rooms. One night I had gotten into bed and was asleep, so was mom. About 11:30 there was a knock on my bedroom door, I groggily got up and opened the door thinking it was mom looking for the bathroom. No one was there. I walked out and looked around, my younger daughter came running downstairs, "mom grandma is upstairs". Mom had gone to the bathroom and couldn't find her way back to her bedroom. She went upstairs and turned on all the lights in all of the bedrooms, looking for her bed. Thank God she woke my daughter up, she could have fallen down the stairs. I got her downstairs and back in bed. This happened again a couple nights later. Later that week, my husband got up early to work in his office upstairs, he left the door in between the living rooms open. Mom woke up, got her winter coat on, her shoes on and her purse and announced when husband came back downstairs that she was ready to go to the train station to pick up her mother and brother. (they've been gone for 20 and 25 years, respectively), so we put the child-proof doorknobs on immediately, so far so good. Oh, it was summer time, 103 degrees outside.
9. One morning I got her up and she was in Russia, another morning and actually several times, the house was under seige, the Yankees have taken over and she is a prisoner. One morning she woke up, went to the bathroom and sat back down in her recliner for a couple hour nap. I got her up to the bathroom and told her I would help her with her bath when she came out. I heard the toilet flush, but she didn't come out. A couples minutes later I checked on her, she is naked, "am I supposed to come out like this?" I got her back in her robe and into the shower. When she got out, she looked into the mirrow and exclaimeid "I'M WHITE!!!!!!!!!!", thought she was always a black woman. I told her to get dressed and come on out to the kitchen for coffee and cereal. She said "ok, I don't know what coffee and cereal are, but I'll have some". RIGHT!
10. After mom falling out of her bed 10 times, I got her a hospital bed with railings. She woke up a few times and wondered why she was in "this institution". Of course she fell out of the bed two more times with the hospital rails up in the beginning, but it's been a month and no more falls onto the floor.
11. One morning I woke up and mom as at the kitchen table already "We won the election". She was the President of the USA.
12. I took mom to South Florida last March to visit some friends. We stayed in the Howard Johnson's on Deerfield Beach, had a balcony overlooking the ocean. The first night, I thought we would leave the sliding glass door open, it was a beautiful night and the sound of the waves crashing on the shore was lovely. I woke up around 2:00 I guess to mom standing on the balcony in her pretty red nightgown, yelling down to some young people at the lounge below us "AMMA ZAMMA BAMMA", "AMMA ZAMMA BAMM", "I know one of you said it, which one? AMMA ZAMMA BAMMA"! I got up, brought mom back into the room, got her back in bed and shut the sliding door, turned on the air conditioning to drown out the outside noises and she went back to sleep, no questions asked.
13. One morning around 4:45 AM, mom came to my bedroom and was in a panic "where's the baby?" She was truly upset. My daughters are 18 and 20, but she still thinks of them as 5 and 7. I told her that the youngest was at a friend's house and the oldest was at her own apartment. She finally calmed down. A few minutes later, she said "well I put him in his place and now he's put me in mine". She thinks on and off that my dad has left her for another woman, he's actually passed away 3 years ago. Then she said "well who did I send off to work this morning?" She sees people in her room with her, usually my dad, so sad.
14. One dream was that she and I had been in some kind of a fist fight with some other people. That morning my husband came into the kitchen and she was covering up her face, saying "don't look at me, don't look at me". She couldn't understand why she was so messed up, but my face wasn't.
15. One day I asked mom to hang up the clothes that were in the dryer before we left the house for the day. I busied myself with something else. She asked me a couple minutes later how to do it and I said flippantly, "the same way you always do it mom". She didn't say anything, so I went about my business. Went to check on her progress a few minutes later, she'd hung up all the wet clothes in the washing machine instead of the dry clothes in the dryer. "Mom what are you doing?" "I don't know".
16. I used to take her with me to tennis lessons, she could sit in the car and watch us play, eat her lunch and/or read magazines. After the lesson one day, I found her in a panic, searching around outside of the car. She'd fallen asleep, woke up from the dream that she was in charge of watching her two younger brothers and they were missing. She was truly upset that she couldn't find them. Had to convince her that they were all grown up and they were not her responsibility to watch anymore, that it was a dream. They are both actually deceased, as of 5 and 25 years ago.
17. Took my little dog outside one night, then checked on mom in the bathroom. She said she was fine, that "there was an altercation, but she broke up the fight before the police arrived, everything is fine now".
18. Got mom in the shower one morning, laid her clothes out on my bed. She got dressed, came out in the kitchen, said, "do I look like I'm dressed?" Told her "yes". She said, I'm learning the customs of your country".
19. I was up preparing a Father's Day Brunch for my extended family Mom came out to the kitchen and said "I didn't know Queens cooked". Somehow she was dreaming that my husband and I were a King and Queen, she couldn't understand why as a King and Queen, we were cooking and vacuuming the house. Thought our servants should be doing that kind of thing. My step-son told her that if his dad and I were the king and queen, that she must be the princess. Told her that we needed to get her a princess suit and crown.
20. Woke up at midnight, mom was sitting in the kitchen, said, "I need to find a way to get out of here, the ogre has my sister". Convinced her that Aunt Sandy has been gone for a long time, and there are no ogres, got her back in bed.
21. She was dreaming one day and asked me what we were doing tomorrow, I told her nothing that I knew of. She said well, while we were at Wal-Mart, someone came around and she signed us up to go away for the weekend. Wonder where I'm going???? Never a dull moment at this house!!!!
22. She was in the bathroom one morning for 30 minutes, half of the time sleeping on the pot. Finally got her out and noticed that she didn't flush the toilet. I asked her why? She said "oh I thought the scientists were studying me". We had watched The Manchurian Candidate the night before.
23. One night she woke up around midnight and had been dreaming that someone was at the front door that she had to let in. We have the door between the two living rooms shut and barricaded so she can't get upstairs, so I wasn't worried that she would try to go out. We both went to bed.
BUT, the next morning I got up and took my dog out, looked in her room and she wasn't there, not in the bathroom either. She had gone out the back door, gone down the 5 steps to the backyard, gone up our greatly sloping driveway to get the paper. Came back to the front door, of course it was locked and couldn't get back in. Found her sitting in the rocking chair on the front porch, who knows how long she'd been there. Bought child-proof doorknobs this day.
24. She woke up about 10:30 one night, heard my daughter upstairs taking a shower and climbed the stairs to investigate, thought someone could be drowning.
I woke her up another day and she told me she'd been chopping things up all day. Later when I was fixing breakfast, she told me that I'd better hurry, my house was going to be demolished soon.
Never know what the story is going to be when she wakes up. She thinks she's been in a coma and asleep for years sometimes. I tell her, "no mom, you're not Rip Van Winkle".
25. At 1:45 AM mom is knocking on my door, says frantically "I need some help! Burt Reynolds told me that Doug's lost, he's at the bottom of the pool". (Doug is my brother, deceased since 1981, married in 1978, had no children) I said "mom, Doug died 25 years ago". She says "then it's his child". I told her he had no children. She tells me that they must be MY children. I told her she was dreaming and to go back to bed. OH NO!!! We have to go searching for Burt Reynolds and the pool and the child at the bottom of the pool. I opened the garage door, that she'd already tried to open, to show her what was outside. I told her that Amanda didn't live here anymore, that she was at her own house asleep and that Katie was upstairs asleep.
She got back in her bed but was adament that Burt Reynolds was going to come get her again and I'd better be ready to go look and not to be surprised if she got me up again. Fortunately she stayed in bed.
To be continued.....................
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Living around the corner "the mom" & I always have this delightful conversation: "where do you live"?
"Around the corner, you have been to my house & flirted with my husband." "I did, I'm from Connecticut." Its been about a year and we always start our conversations this way. LOL I love her but I know some days my friend can only take so much. Like Elaine, I think prior to her illness this was/must have been one amazing woman. I'm glad I know her now. J
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Posted by grammice
on 2008-02-04 16:50:58
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| Views: 140
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