A Good Company

Last week, I wrote about how I would be seeing my grandpa last weekend & I really hoped that he would know who I was & be able to talk so that we could understand him.

My wish was granted.

Last summer, Granddad became kind of violent because of the Alzheimer's & he was kicked out of the nursing home he was in only a mile from our house. I'm thankful for last summer, the whole 3 months we had with him close by where we could see him every day, but I'm so sad that those days are long gone.

The closest place that would take him is 2 hours away from us & it's pretty grungy. 

Everyone there is pretty much unconscious or has completely lost their minds so not only is it sad to go there, but Granddad doesn't have any friends. Although sadly, he fits into that group pretty well most of the time now.

My mom tries to go see him almost every weekend despite the fact that it takes up almost a whole day because we know if the nurses know we come often, they'll take better care of him & we don't ever want him to feel like we don't care.

Two weekends ago when my mom & uncle were there, they were sitting at a table with him & another man & apparently the other man thinks Granddad is his dad. 

My uncle asked my mom for a paper & a pen & wrote, "this guy thinks dad is his father". 

My mom shook her head knowingly.

But then, Granddad reached out his hand asking to see the paper. 

My mom handed it to him & plain as day, my mom said, he looked at the paper and said, "this guy thinks dad is his father. Why did he write that?"

My mom explained to him that the guy does think he's his father & he kind of laughed & shrugged his shoulders.

After Granddad had the paper, he wanted to see the pen & he started writing. My mom said he kind of scribbled a little bit and then all of the sudden he wrote:

HOME

My mom said she just lost it. 

We didn't know he could still read let alone write. 

Plus, how do you explain to someone in that state that you want nothing more than to take them home but it's impossible? you can't.

Anyway, when we were packing up to go to the nursing home last weekend, my mom found a notebook from the company she works at & the one he worked at for 40 years too & she stuck a pen in it. 

She wanted to take it to him so he could practice writing.

I was the first one through the door at the nursing home and when I saw him I smiled really big because oh my gosh, I can't even tell you how much I love that guy & he smiled right back. 

I think he knew me.

We sat for a while and then mom gave him the notebook and pen. 

I wrote some things & he read them & then he started writing. 

Some things he wrote weren't legible but one thing was: "a good company". 

That company was his livelihood for so many years & he remembers it & can write about it.

Granddad still toddled around in his wheelchair occasionally not wanting to cooperate with us, he still mummbled some & then got frustrated when we couldn't understand him but at this point, we're thankful for any little bit of Granddad we see in that big, old body of his. 

Last weekend, we saw a lot of him & I'm thankful. 

My heart just swells up with love for him.

Pt. 2

... So, last Wednesday, my mom & uncle drove Granddad to a place about 2 hours from our house - a behavioral center. A Psych Ward more or less.

My mom stopped here in Indianapolis to pick me up. She had told me she was going to this city near by but didn't tell me why. I can honestly say that if I had known what we would be doing I wouldn't have gone. Mom & I pulled up next to the car that held Granddad & Uncle Benny to see Granddad with his foot somehow twisted in the seatbelt & Uncle Benny down on the ground trying to get it out. Granddad had taken his shoes off, gotten his foot wrapped up in the belt & the belt was locked so it wouldn't pull down any farther to allow for us to get him untangled. Knowing that we had to get him undone, I walked around to the drivers side, crawled in, lifted him up and pulled him backwards so that he could pull his foot out. Finally, we did it. He had chocolate all over his shirt and pants, was hallucinating and couldn't form sentences. The nursing home had overdosed him.

We got him in a wheelchair & wheeled him into a door that a nurse had to scan a card to get into only to drop him off with 6 or 7 other geriatric crazy people. He tried to stand up and started to fall backwards. The nurse was in front of home so if I wouldn't have been standing there he may have fallen backwards. I wanted to scoop him up and run away with him. "Come on Neal, let's eat" the nurse said. He looked at the food with eyes that were clearly confused and I told the nurse that someone would need to feed him - he couldn't feed himself & I knew he had to be hungry. It was dinner time. The nurse said they would do it & then it was time to leave. With tears running down her face, my mom told him goodbye and that she would be back soon to visit. I'm tellin ya, it's like leaving a sick baby with a stranger. It hurts my heart like nothing else. I said bye, choking back the tears for the sake of my mom & we left. "If you need to call on the way home, do it", the nurse said.

Mom called often but there had been no improvement so on Friday she emailed & said that she would be going up to see him Saturday & asked if I wanted to go. Of course I said yes.

We walked into the place that he's at and there he was in a wheelchair with a special pillow shoved into the wheelchair so that he couldn't get out. He had been biting, kicking, hitting & had fallen once. He had only slept about 5 hours since he had been there the entire time. "Hi pop" my mom said, trying so hard to believe that he was fine. She wanted so badly to see him come out of this, to know that he was just acting this way to the nurses because he didn't know them & was scared. He gave her what she wanted. "Deborah", he said & she felt confident.

The nurses wheeled him into a secluded room with us where he sat in his wheel chair "working on a truck" that wasn't there. Talking to people who were dead & getting really agitated. Mom kept trying to talk to him & get him to understand. Still in denial. "Pop, you have to be nice to these people - they're trying to help you." She repeated over & over again.

I kept telling her to get out of his face. He was unpredictable & I knew that. She learned her lesson when, at a time when she wasn't even that close to him & totally out of the blue, he said, "if you have any questions, don't ask anybody but me." "Okay", she said, "do you have anything you want to tell us?" & out of no where, he got a look of rage & slapped my mom right across the face. Hard. Immediately tears began running down her face, "Pop" she said, with a quivering voice, "that's not nice." Sure, her face hurt, but her heart hurt the most. We sat there in silence for a long time before turning him back over to the nurses & leaving. Mom had gotten a slap in the face literally & figuratively. One of reality.

& Yesterday? My mom went to see him again. They had given Granddad shots to sleep & yet he had only slept 3 hours the night before. When she called yesterday morning, she could hear him screaming in the back ground. So, yesterday, the center scheduled for her to meet with a social worker. The social worker told her that he would never come out of this. That he would be like this forever. That she needed to find a place that would accept him & keep him in a wheelchair & sedated for the rest of his life.

Still, my mom refuses to believe it & she may be right. You see, just a week ago he was fine. The Klonopin that the nursing home was giving him every 4 hours is a drug that is not supposed to be administered more than twice a day. Ever. & if it is, it can cause permanent psychological damage. So whether or not he is permanently this way, we don't know. But we're praying. & we're gonna put the hurt on that nursing home. Of course, no amount of money will bring the Granddad we had a week ago back, but we're going to need a whole hell of a lot of money to even be able to take care of him now that he is so psychologically sick.

This nursing home, inevitably, does this to other people & it's by the grace of God, that my mom never took their word on anything. She asked questions. She went & got the bottles of medicine that, as suspected, do not correspond with the charts. There is a lot less medicine in the bottles than written on the charts. If she wouldn't have questioned their every move, Granddad would be in a different facility that's in kahoots with the nursing home & we would have no clue how any of this happened.

So take this as a lesson folks, ask questions - never stop. Investigate. My Granddad will never be the same because of the need for some staff at a nursing home to be able to sit around & do nothing, while the patients sit, or lay, sedated.

Life as we know it has changed Pt. 1

Remember this guy?

I talked about him here, here and here.

For those of you who remember the stories, I wont bore you with telling them again & if you don't remember, just pop back over & read them before reading on.

So, I haven't written in a while because since I've been away at school and haven't been in the midst of it, it kind of has slipped my mind. I mean, I thought of him often and my mom would give me updates but I didn't have anything really compelling to write about so I didn't.

Little did I know, that was a good thing.

About a month or two ago, Granddad was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia. The doctor described it as the worst symptoms of Alzheimer's combined with the worst symptoms of Parkinson's. He said that Lewy Body patients are extremely combative and usually, "move around a lot", meaning that he would be kicked out of a lot of nursing homes. Unlike a normal Alzheimer's patient, doctors cannot tell what stage Lewy Body patients are in and how they will progress. It's kind of a wait, see, hope & pray thing. It was a total freakin' nightmare diagnoses basically.

Despite the horrific diagnosis, Granddad had done pretty well with only a few minor outbursts every week or so. When he would have an outburst, the nursing home would give him a pill, he would sleep for a couple of hours and then be fine again.

Fast forward to Fall Break. I went & saw him. I knocked on the door & he answered with a big, "Hey Baby!" He had not slept much the night before though, and I was still feeling pretty puny, so we decided to take a nap. It's a weird thing, but it felt so awesome to take a nap in his room. He slept in his chair & I slept on his bed, but for the first time in a long time, it felt like I had a "normal" grandparent again. Whatever normal is. His therapy nurse came in & woke us up so I left so that he could do therapy. I saw him the next day when we brought him some new clothes & he was sitting at the lunch table with his friends & asked for another one of the sweater vests. He was doing great.

Last week, my mom had conferences in Indianapolis so she was out of town & she had written that in his charts but of course, as soon as she left, the nursing home started calling. The first nurse began by asking if my mom was going to make it to a meeting that she was supposed to be at - she had forgotten & asked if she could reschedule. Then, the nurse told her that Granddad had gotten a little out of control that night. Annoyed, my mom told her that she was out of town & that she had written that in his chart.

It was only an hour later when the nursing home called again & said that well, they had gotten it wrong the first time - he had gotten really bad before - he had scratched one of the nurses & someone was going to need to stay with him all night. Again, my mom told them that she was out of town & they would need to try to call my uncle. They said okay & that they would have two women stay in there for the night but they would charge $20 an hour.

Before the night ended, Mom called and asked how he was doing. He was resting, they said. Mom asked if the ladies were staying with him & they said no but he was okay. WTF??

In the morning, she called again to check on him. Again, they said that he was resting but told Mom that they had taken the legs off of his bed. You know, so he wouldn't hurt himself. So, my mom said, he can't walk then? That's right, the nurse said. She said they had been giving him Klonopin, a very dangerous drug, every 4 hours. They couldn't allow for him to come out of this slumber. And, oh by the way, he needed be taken to a behavioral center right away. He was too much of a risk to have in their facility. They were kicking him out .... {To Be Continued}

Not for Weenies.

.... yeah, that's right, I said it, having a family member with Alzheimer's is NOT for weenies.

Today, Drew left for Wisconsin to go to Summerfest to see 2 O.A.R. concerts and 2 Dave Matthews concerts. yeah. And so anyway, he came over early this morning to see me before he left but I couldn't throw off my morning ritual of going to see granddad. So, before going to get his van serviced (yeah, I said van. Mini Van actually. shut up! I think its adorable!) we went to visit granddad.

There is the sweetest CNA there who is only a junior in high school. I swear, she's the best one there. Anyway, when I walked in she said that they hadn't been able to get him out of bed yet today. So, Drew and I went back to his room, unsure of what we would find, and found him still laying in the bed in his undies. Dang. Of course, I got him dressed & brushed his hair & teeth and then he actually wanted to go out front. Out front is where everyone sits and participates in activities. Every day, I walk up to the door & ring the door bell, hoping he will be out there participating too. He's not. So today, I was super glad when he wanted to go out and socialize. Together we passed a beach ball & kicked it too. Things have been a roller coaster with him since we've had him here but today was the first time I felt like he was better than the day before and for that, I am extremely grateful.

So you might be thinking ... if you're so grateful ... why is it for weenies? Let me tell you. Granddad, Drew & I had a great time playing and just as I do with the kids I babysit, I warned Granddad when it was almost time for me to leave. Apparently he didn't get the message. I had to repeatedly tell him why I had to leave and when I finally felt like he understood I said the usual, "ok Granddad, I love you, bye."

.... Get your kleenex out ....

... and he said, with his voice quivering and tears in his eyes, "bye."

Drew tried to console me by telling me that soon, he will adjust but man, my heart broke once again. I wanted to go scoop that big 87 year old man up and carry him home but I couldn't.

And this is why I say, having a family member with Alzheimer's is not for weenies.

Rough Night

I'm blogging at 5:33 A.M.

Weird, I know.

I can't sleep though.

Last night, we dropped Granddad off at a facility.

Dropping him off was like dropping a new baby off at daycare.

He seemed like he was okay, but I know I wouldn't be if I were him.

I just wonder:

Is he sad?

Will he know where he is if he wakes up in the night?

Does he know that he's not being punished for being sick?

Will he make friends?

Will he eat okay?

Does he know that we love him?

Will the staff there be extra nice to him?

There's just so much to think about.

So, at 5:33 A.M. I am blogging.

Only 3.5 more hours until I go visit him for bible study and exercise.

Most of all, I hope he knows that we love him.

What I know most, is that I'm going to be super tired tomorrow.

I should go back to bed.

Things go full circle ... Even life.

We have a new person living in our house. Well, not exactly new. He's new to our house; he's my grandpa.

My grandpa, Granddad, was diagnosed with Dementia, the beginnings of Alzheimer's disease about three years ago. In the beginning, he would forget where he put the keys and would do things like going to get the mail multiple times a day because he would forget that he had already gotten it. (These are things that I too do on a daily basis. Do I have Dementia?) Ever since then, Granddads symptoms have gotten worse. Now he doesn't know some of our family at times and can't ever be left alone.

My granddad was born in 1923 to Wallace and Maggie Bell Munn living in a school house on a mill pond in South Carolina. He is the second of thirteen children. He was the child of an extreme alcoholic; forced to work his ass off from the time he could walk just to try to have enough food to survive for he and his siblings to share. At fifteen he knew he had to do something so he told the Army that he was sixteen (the required age at that time) and joined forces. He joined the forces before he had ever even had a pair of shoes or a tooth brush of his own. In 1942 he married my grandma and they had four children together. After leaving the Army, Granddad got a job at Cummins and worked there for twenty-two years. My mom says that she can not ever remember a time when he did not have more than one job whether it was working at a 8-5 and then coming home to the farm or heading to another job after the first. Still, he was working his ass off. In 1989, my grandma, the love of Granddad's life, his wife of 47 years, passed away. He continued to be a bus driver.

Less than a year later, he was married to the whitetrashgolddiggingwhore, Hattie. (we call her Haggie.) They were only married a few years before she ran off with his house, RV, and had burned every picture of my mom and all of the things she had left there after college. Yeah. Devastated and homeless, Granddad lived with us for a while.

It wasn't long before Granddad met his third wife, Maytle. They both returned to an Army reunion, he to see his old comrades and her to inform the men that her husband, Tommy had died of cancer. They were married soon after this reunion. For twelve years, they have been married. He moved to live with her in Mississippi where they lived until he wanted to move back to where he had been born, the mill pond in South Carolina. Even though they moved, they have just been renting the Mississippi house to the Army.

Up until now, Maytle has been nothing but a blessing. She has taken care of granddad and they have been happy together. Now though, it seems that a sick man is just too much to handle. My mom began getting calls last week from him crying; she had begun being abusive. Bite marks, bruises, being called a lazy son of a bitch (which as you can imagine, hurt him the most of all. Such a hard working lad his whole life) .... this is just the beginning. Mom knew that it was time to fly down and get him out of that house and she did. The stories are horrendous and I'll spare you most of the gory details. In 48 hours they visited the neurologist twice, saw a lawyer, got a change of address, packed all of his stuff up and left. Yeah, my mom is a bad ass, but my badass mom is so sad. Her dad is sick and doesn't even know her at times. Granddad is sad too. He had to leave his home, his garden, his wife and what was left of his life. The man has to be fed, bathed, and given medicine. His life has gone full circle; he's an infant again.

He will be staying here with us until we can get him into a nice Alzheimer's facility; the best thing we can do for him.

::My heart breaks::

If granddad could read this I would want him to see: I love you, you're safe, we're going to take care of you and I'm so happy to share this Father's Day with you for the first time ever.