Medical update: because of course Blog #1000 was going to be a medical update · 3:47pm Nov 15th, 2020
I'm going to start with the transcript I put into the Discord server on the 12th, unedited (except for adding some spaces between lines). After that, I'll relate the next part in a more conventional fashion.
It's been a bad week.
Okay, first Discord lesson of the day: you can't have a ' in a channel name. Again, who knew?
(I wanted to name the channel 'medican't'.)
I'll start typing in the update. Any arrivals can just read it as/if they come in.
So she's been in the physical rehabilitation center for a while now: entry was the night of November 2nd. And due to coronavirus rules, I have not been allowed into the building. I dropped off her clothing, along with some personal items and a supply of fabric tape, plus a marker. Because I can't bring things home to wash them this time, they require all laundry to be marked, and I thought it would ruin less things to write on the tape.
I've called her fairly regularly. There have been two kinds of reaction to those calls. She's either furious with me because I have "stuck her in this hellhole," or she's in pain and wants me to do something. This seems to be leg pain, although she hasn't been keeping track of which leg.
She's told me there's swelling. The nurses say there isn't. She's had dopplers and X-rays. They aren't finding anything. My best guess was that the last epidural wore off, but that pain usually doesn't go down to the ankle. It could be bone chips, but that would have shown on the X-rays...
But the pain is real. And as I told the nurse, even if she's just trying to find a way out (because yesterday, she told me the pain was so bad that she wanted to go back into the hospital), I can't ever dismiss things as crying wolf because the wolves are out there.
Today was the Family Meeting. Teleconference. And I took the call in their parking lot, because I thought there was a tiny chance they might want to speak with me inside at some point. Plus I am allowed to go up to her window. From outside the building. And I wanted to show her that she hadn't been abandoned. I think that's her biggest fear right now: that she's just stuck in there.
They did not bring her into the room for the Family Meeting.
Nor was she on the conference call.
...not happy about that.
The Family Meeting is when they tell me about her progress and what the current plan is.
I'll try to get to the point.
Because her leg pain is so high (and she can't use the main workout room until she clears quarantine, so it's been bedside exercises), she has made hardly any physical progress at all.
Mentally, they feel she's gone down from when they last had her -- but that was about a year ago, and the slope still only goes downhill.
At this time, they feel that in order for her to reach the point where she can try to use the apartment stairs again, she will have to be there for a total of at least four weeks. Possibly five.
Which means pretty much all of November with an option to extend.
For someone who may be feeling abandoned.
Oh, and they tried to talk to me about the whole 'maybe it's time for permanent care' bit again.
I gave them the usual can't-cut-the-last-rope speech. People probably have it memorized.
In an attempt to lower her pain, I called her epidural doctor to set up an appointment. This is more awkward than usual because he just struck out on his own: personal practice. The good news is that he picked up himself. The bad news is that he was supposed to call back himself with an appointment time and the office closed nine minutes ago.
Maybe tomorrow...
He can see her on the 20th, but he's not sure when: that's what I was waiting for the call on. The care center can transport. There was an opening on the 18th, but that's the first day I'm allowed to visit her in person because quarantine will be over. After that, I can see her twice a week, in the cafeteria. I thought mental health was more important, so I didn't take the epidural for the 18th and went with the visit instead. I may wind up regretting that. A lot.
After the teleconference wrapped up, I went to the side of the building and talked to her through a barely-open window, with a nurse supervising. Also from about eight feet below her and, because deities have a sense of humor, in the rain.
I'm still not quite dry.
I had trouble hearing her. Most of what she was talking about was the leg pain. But at least she wasn't yelling at me.
I don't know if she can get through a month (or more) on her own this way. But I know she can't make it up the steps right now. Or worse...
...she makes it up once, and then can't ever go down again.
I'm trying to fix whatever I can. She's supposed to get a program renewal phone call from a government assistance agency on 12/2. I have to try and reschedule that because I don't know if she'll be out by then.
I can cancel some appointments and juggle others. Setting up a new calendar has to wait until she's out, because I can't commit to a date without that.
But we're looking at, potentially, her being in there for all of November.
I... don't think that's good for her mental stability.
I don't know how much of her might come out.
So that was the 12th.
On the 13th, I called her to let her know about the epidural schedule. She immediately asked me to switch it to the 18th, but that turned out to be impossible: the booking slot had already filled by the time I got through. Still, she wasn't really angry when I told her that the 20th was all which had been available. Cordial, really. The call ended well, and then I went through the usual five minutes (or more) of listening to the phone at her ward's nurse's station ring while I waited for someone to pick up.
I told them about the appointment and asked them to arrange for transport. For purposes of maintaining quarantine, it's better if she goes with someone who's certified to supervise integrity. They told me that they would set it up, but there might be a bill. 'Might,' because the nurse didn't think Medicare covered it and had no idea whether Medicaid does. I believe it is under Medicaid, as the crocodile gets enough free rides there (and usually doesn't remember to call for them), but I asked her to call me when she found out. I'm still waiting on that call.
The 13th was quiet, so I wrote. Got a chapter posted on Cerea's story and everything. This turned the 14th into a recovery day, because I really overdid it on the 13th.
And I thought... why not have another window visit? It might boost her morale, and the first one wasn't so bad...
(And here we have The Mistake.)
I called. Endless hold again, and then I set it up for 10:00 a.m. Got there right on time.
She forced the window open from her side (after not understanding why I couldn't do anything from mine) and then screamed at me for eight minutes.
Her leg was in horrible pain. She couldn't walk. (She could stand for a short time, and did when opening the window.) She wanted out. She didn't have to live with me. She was going to call a friend and have them extract her. I had stuck her in the hellhole because I didn't love her and had never cared about her and was trying to put her in prison and I didn't care about her pain and she was in so much pain and no one did anything --
-- eight minutes was pretty much the limit.
I pulled out the old speech. I wasn't going to argue with a disease. Walked back to the car, and called that family friend to give them fair warning. Thought about how the pendulum was swinging, how my staying near her was just making things worse, began to second-guess that first personal visit on the 18th...
I had to get out of there. Go anywhere. And I'd thought about a cat cafe as a Saturday trip -- you can see that in part of the Discord server: I was in desperate need of fuzz therapy -- but I'd checked online: they were closed due to covid restrictions. I couldn't afford to do much more than drive around for the sake of driving around...
...the closeout store. It was about twenty minutes away. They get interesting sodas on occasion. (I'll skip ahead: it was Fentimans Cherry Cola, it claims to be botanical, and it tastes like grass.) Just... drive a little, wander the aisles, try to calm down. Here's the first major stoplight --
-- my phone went off.
Okay. Can't ignore a phone call when she's in the rehab center. I pulled over.
It's her mobile.
...so the good news is that she's far enough up to operate her phone? I answered --
-- and here we go into Round Two. Which is mostly a repeat of Round One, except that she is now claiming that one of the nurses pushed her down into a wheelchair. This was described as an attack and according to her, I don't care about that either.
I'll... skip over the part where I tried to reason with her, because y'know, a disease doesn't listen. But then it was back to being on hold with the nurse's station. For about seven minutes. And when I got through, I told them about December of 2018 and asked for a psychiatric consult, because there were echoes in my head and they said this might be the sign of an imminent break. The nurse promised to get one and call me back when anyone came in.
(No one ever called back.)
I thanked her, doing so just as Call Waiting went off. (It's a dumbphone, but it's not quite that dumb.) My mother again, but I had to wrap up with the nurse. By the time that was over, the waiting call had disconnected. Get on the road again.
It was about three blocks before the phone rang...
...I think I have to compress a little here. Over the next three and a half hours, she called me thirty-four times.
I listened to the first few. When the contents never changed, I started enjoying the one benefit of my dying flip phone: open it by a centimeter, close it again, lose the call. But I was waiting for the callback from the rehab center. I couldn't turn the phone off. I always had to look at the tiny screen and verify it was her. Wherever I went, the phone rang and I hung up because there was nothing new to say, and I started to hate myself because I'd gone for the window visit in order to make her feel like she hadn't been abandoned.
I didn't want her to feel like she was alone. And here I was, hanging up on her over and over.
A lot of fuel got wasted, because I just kept driving. I didn't go much of anywhere, and most of what I spent was on gas. But I didn't want to go home because answering machine connected to the landline and who knew what that looked like --
-- she never called it --
-- and sometimes I would get ten, fifteen minutes, then it would be three calls in a row, and I didn't let it go to voice mail because I have a very small recording time window which can't get filled that way.
At one point, I opened the phone and listened in silence. She started talking about how she had almost no money, how she would walk home if she had to (on the leg which didn't work). How I didn't care about her pain, how I took advantage of her, had stuck her in the hellhole...
Over and over and over.
More driving. Getting closer to home, but not there. The phone went off again --
-- her brother. Okay. Pull over.
I told him about the day. I didn't want to.
He listened. Then he told me that about ninety minutes before he'd called me, he had spoken to her. About fifteen minutes, with his spouse also on the line. And she had been as clear and lucid as he'd heard her in months. Nice, standard conversation. Did mention the leg pain, but that was about it. Had said nothing about me or the morning at all.
...I'm being gaslit by a dementia patient.
(At one point, I thought he might have gotten her right after the psych meds kicked in. But she usually gets those at bedtime.)
All I could do was ask him to take my word for what had happened. He seemed to believe me. And then I forced my way home.
The calls stopped around 2 p.m. I pulled into my parking space well after that, because I didn't trust the phone. Went online, went into my Discord server and said nothing about any of this to anyone there because oh dear gawds, please let me talk about anything else...
Bed. Try to sleep. Mostly fail. Up at two, settle back down around four-thirty. It's a cold night. Multiple layers for walking outside and wishing I knew what I was supposed to do.
The phone went off at 6:30 a.m.
...and of course it's her. Okay. I have to take this --
-- the leg pain is horrible. She can barely think. She's practically crying into the phone. She wants to go to the hospital --
-- I need her to tell them that. They can doppler again. Maybe the blood clots have shifted, or new ones appeared. If she talks to them --
-- they don't do anything! Just shove pills at her! And as I listened, a nurse came in and I begged her to give the phone to the nurse so I could talk to a professional, but the nurse was giving her a pill and she started yelling about not throwing the pill at her and then there was no more call.
The next one came in around 7:00. I tried to tell her that the pills hadn't had time to take effect. She semi-agreed and disconnected.
She keeps calling. There's been six so far today. I've answered them all.
I have begged her to speak with the staff. To push them into sending her to the hospital, the way she keeps pushing me. She refused at first. Then she said she'd tried and had gotten nowhere, that they just looked at her like she's a piece of meat. She's half-crying most of the time. Pain, frustration, and anger.
She keeps saying "God help me," over and over.
She wants to come home. She insists she's strong enough to come home now. Climb up two flights of stairs on a leg which supposedly hurts too much to stand on for very long.
She called while I was writing this.
Twice.
And I keep asking her what she wants me to do. Because I can't pull her out of the rehab center and take her to the hospital. I can't even go into the building. She's surrounded by medical professionals: can't she keep asking them for help? The people who can do something? But maybe they are ignoring her. Or maybe there's no swelling in the leg, but there's always a wolf somewhere and...
...I was going to write today. Glimmer. I was trying to finalize plans on the chapter between phone calls. But every time the ringer goes off, my thoughts scatter. Because I want to help her, but I can't get in there and I don't know if getting in there is even the best thing and I can't be sure how much of this is real. I believe she's in pain, but... she might be trying to use the pain as an excuse for getting out.
But if it's really that bad... if the staff is ignoring her, looking at her like she's a piece of meat...
...I don't even know if she talked to the staff at all. I could try to find out. Maybe twelve minutes of waiting for someone to pick up. It went to fifteen once, and then the call cut off.
I'm tired.
The phone is on the desk. A venomous snake waiting to strike again.
Did you notice that Black Friday sales are starting all over the place? Trying to stretch out the crowds, I guess. Still makes retail therapy into a really bad idea. I'm not going shopping because the budget isn't there and... I don't want to be driving when I'm in this state. When the phone goes off.
Her brother has been calling on most days. At one point, he told me that he felt it was good for her to go into rehab, because that gave me a break. I tried to tell him that it's not like that. Having her in the rehab center just stretches the elastic. There's more distance, but the connection remains constant. Only with extra tension on everything.
You can't stretch a rubber band forever.
I could call the nurse's desk.
I could drive to the rehab center. Try to speak with someone that way.
I could wait for the phone to ring again.
I could scream. But I have neighbors.
I don't think I can write today. Tomorrow... tomorrow I have to reschedule a government phone call (assistance program review) because she may not be out in time to take it, and then I have to drive up to the epidural office because that doctor has a new practice and that means filling out all the paperwork again. In advance. I already told him that I would come up on Monday. That has to happen regardless of phone calls.
Of course, if she does go into the hospital, that appointment probably becomes moot.
I wish I could sleep.
I wish the Jets weren't on their bye week. Refuge in comedy.
I wish I could turn the phone off.
I wish I could drop it off a bridge.
Let me add my little voice to that chorus: “maybe it's time for permanent care”. Maybe it was time last year. Maybe you’re doing more harm than good here, trying to do permanent care yourself as a one man band, to yourself and her. If not now, that time is surely coming when it will be too much for even your stamina. Think now about how you will recognize it for yourself when it arrives and when it is already past.
Ugh. I wish there was more I could do than say that I'm sorry you're dealing with this. It's all I can repeat. Please try and rest if the phone stops ringing and the opportunity arises.
Judging from what you've said, the only parts left of her are the part that hates you and the part that hates doctors. The only ways the situation could deteriorate further would actually improve things.
I have said -- not on one of these blogs -- that I don't know what it'd be like if my father were still alive, but in the state he was in his last few months, or worse. I wonder if this is a text-based glimpse of what it might be have been like. I'm content to not have been given the chance to learn if it would have been. It never got as bad as I've been reading, and it was still rough.
Record one of her rants so her brother knows you're telling the truth.
You are sick. That simple. Sick people can't heal thenselves without help. Specially when the source of sickness is right there.
At this point, you need someone to takeover your mom's care, and get away, 'cause you can't help her if you can't help yourself.
I know this spiral pretty well...happened with my grandmother, and I reacted as bad as you are. I learned from it. You have to stabilish some "filters". She says she is in pain ? Maybe...maybe not. Inform the doctors, that's what you can do. Other then that, you are not a doctor, and that pain can be the disease talking. Saying that she is in pain is a easy way to call for attention. The doctors would probably talk 'bout a pain they can't fix by now, if she complained. And if she does not complain, except to you...well.
But, basically, get away from her and handle the care to another parent, at least for a while. New social conections are better then old sickned social connections.
Let me add my voice to 5398631’s. You need to think about what will signal that it’s time to have her placed in permanent care. Better still, talk about it with a medical professional who has experience with families that have been in a similar situation. Your case isn’t (unfortunately) unique, and this isn’t a dereliction of your filial duty. Rather, it’s the sincerest expression of it, as you have to think about her long term welfare, which is very much dependent on yours.
Many hugs, get some sleep, and take deep breaths.
This is the ad banner which appears for me at the bottom of this blog.
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Thank you,hard-coded irony.
The phone hasn't rung since I posted the blog. The last call was her, in addition to the pain and begging God to help her, telling me how dry her throat was. I kept telling her to go get a drink. Over and over. And then the call ended.
I've been... sorting change. It's something I can do. 'Hey, let me see what I got from that last Coinstar return slot.' I have another NYC subway token, and a British new penny. Also, there's a silver dime.
It's my ninety-ninth silver dime.
I can now pay someone to betray Jesus 3.3 times.
...thank you for unfollowing me! I'll be here all morning!
Went outside to take a walk around the block before the rain comes in. The seventh call of the day arrived.
She told me that she's taken her shoes off and on twenty times, because her feet hurt. That lunch was nothing but a hot dog. She admitted she'd had a drink. And that her leg hurts so much.
I got it down to the right leg. (I couldn't get her to ID pain above the knee, below it, or whole limb.) This time, she made it sound as if she hadn't spoken about it to anyone in the rehab care recently. I begged her to do so, got something which might have been a yes, and that was the end of the call.
...not writing today.
*sigh*
...at least there's already two chapters and a freebie up, with half the month left. It means I can sacrifice today. Maybe there's enough time remaining to hope for a little quiet...
Don't know the details, but in the abstract I can see why they wouldn't include someone who's Non Compos Mentos + bed ridden.
5398666
Those haven't been usable since April 13, 2003. Some of them have numismatic value. You should check online.
5398631
5398658
It is time to get her in for permanent care, Estee. You have done everything you possibly can for your mother at this point. I hate to be blunt, but she seems too far gone to even remember that she loves you, so I don't know how much of her mind is left to save by being there. If you keep going like this, she is going to drive you to a nervous breakdown or WORSE, and I don't want to see that.
5398711
My current (and last) hope is that she'll recover somewhat when she leaves the rehab center and has her home environment back again. If anything, there's an argument to be made that the current setting is demonstrating why she needs to be in her own bedroom.
...just not right now, because she can't get up the building's staircases.
5398719
Then might I recommend that you buy yourself a second, cheap cellphone JUST for doctors and nurses to call you? That way, you have one phone that you know you need to answer when it rings, and your regular flip phone can just sit there off until you decide you want to talk to your mom again?
Perhaps you could schedule a time with her to get her calls every day while she's there, so then you can keep that phone off and relax throughout the day until the time to call her. Make it only an hour, so that way if she has something important to say then she has the time, but any bullshit and that's it.
Honestly, I worry that you'll either have a heart attack from all the stress, or you'll see her calling while on the road, looking at an oncoming semi, and think "that would be better than answering the phone," right before you swerve in front of it. This is the best thing I can come up with for you to avoid either end.
5398728
Oh, please. I'm clearly trying for the full-fledged nervous breakdown.
(Multiple extremely dark jokes deleted. Let's just say the first line out involved asking about the location of any clock towers.)
Have you tried conference calling in her brother on a call to get.... I’m not sure.
This must be terribly stressful. For you. For her. For everyone.
...it's almost tempting to suggest a custom answering machine message (something along the lines of "Uh-huh................Hm..................Yes, mom...........................................No, Mom........................................................Hmmm.........................................Uh-huh.") to allow her the emotional release of yelling at you for a bit without further increasing your stress levels. But that would not help if the rehab centre phones. Or one of the doctors.
5398731
My advice still stands; One phone for her that you can keep shut off, and another phone just for the important medical calls.
If something serious happens, the doctors have a way to contact you (which may be blocked by HER incessant calls right now!), and you'll have time for yourself without having to worry about her yelling at you.
Everyone who's suggesting Estee institutionalize their mother right now?
LTC homes and nursing homes, on the whole, do not currently have very good Covid survival rates. 40% of all US deaths have been from the two combined. The facility she's in now is a rehab center, and there's a reason for the protocols they have there. It's so the doctors will see the patients.
Given she's old, frail, prone to infection, and doesn't listen to instruction, think about what a nursing home would mean for her at this current time. We all know Estee needs a break. They're getting one now. Let them rest w/o adding to the stress, maybe?
5398719
Not to put to fine a point on it, but what does 'Recover' mean in this context? And in the lager view, what's the end goal of all this treatment?
I'm not sure WHY you keep your old flip phone. I just checked on Amazon. You can get an unlocked cellphone (I think that means "can be used by any company") for under $50. If you're willing to be locked into 1 company (say Tracphone) you can get one for under $25. + If you buy from the company that is currently providing your service, you can keep your phone number for free -they will mail you a chip.
Walmart doesn't have as good a selection or price (at least, not here in Phoenix) but you can just pick it up in store & it's still under $50 for some.
So this just happened.
I got a phone call from someone whose number is one wrong digit from mine. Apparently my mother has called her several times over the last two days. She advised me to check in.
I did. And she's in bed, she's still taking off her shoes and putting them back on, I don't know who she's spoken to or what they said, I have no idea what's truly going on and she's sobbing on the phone and the calls are clearly not going to stop and I don't know if she's spoken to anyone other than me.
So I'm driving over there now. I know I can't go inside and I won't go to her window, but maybe they'll send a nurse up to the door. I need to see someone in charge and figure out what's actually happening.
Let's go make things worse.
At this point I think it would be far better for you and your health if your mother remains in a facility. I know it will be hard but hopefully they are monitoring your mother and are seeing her episodes. Sooner or later it will be impossible for you to care for your mother and I think that it is fast approaching. I know health care cost here in America are out of control but after a certain point they must realize that they are in a no win senecio and help take care of your mother.
I agree with what someone else has said get another phone number and give that to the facility so they have that to contact you and you have a free line so your mother can fill up that one. You need this as much as she does, because she still knows she needs you deep down she just can say it.
5398728
As a semi operator myself, I would find that a bit unfair to an innocent rando just trying to get another load where it needs to be. We’re often owner-operators; even a no-fault crash has VERY serious consequences for us! I see suicide as more a civil rights thing than a mental health thing, I’m not one to tell others how to run their lives or deaths, but I encourage everyone to address their own problems on their own time and dime.
I mentioned the other night that I had some familiarity with similar circumstances this year... a loved one in rehab with a dicey mental state who was miserable, constantly angry and wanting/demanding to leave, and Covid meaning that nobody could so much as visit. I ended up cancelling regular medical appointments that she had that the rehab center was perfectly willing to drive her to, all because I feared that once there she would refuse to get back in the van to return to rehab afterwards. I had to keep telling family and friends that talked to her directly that, yes, she sounded good, but no, I wasn’t coming to pick her up tomorrow and much of what she told them had no basis in reality. It was a stressful few weeks, and while a lot of it sounds familiar, it wasn’t even close to as bad of a situation as what you describe.
I spent time trying to come up with any advice that I could impart based on that experience, and I just came up blank. These are all crap situations, made unique by personal circumstances, and you’re the one who best knows the situation that you’re in. At that point, everyone just does the best that they can with the resources that they have available.
I guess that I can just offer sympathies and ask that you forgive yourself for the limitations you have in your ability to act. You’re obviously a loving person doing the best that you can in a situation where even people who have trained and set their entire lives around dealing with such situations don’t have the concrete answers.
So everyone saying that Estee should put their mom in a facility is making it sound very, very simple.
Just from Estee's attempts to get a caretaker for their mom, I don't know how easy it would be to put her in a facility. And I think what Estee is hoping for is that their mom is this bad because of some other illness, she still has dementia yes, but is something else making it worse? Plus Covid cases being higher in nursing homes
I'm sending you all the cats and kitten cuddles Estee
Good luck, Estee; I'm sorry I don't have something better to say.
5398752
If you MUST keep your old phone (God knows why)
IMO, you can at least get a cheap extra phone (under $50) & give that number to the doctors.
Then you could turn off your regular phone.
Your phone plan doesn't cover another line?
Get either phone cards or a prepaid cell phone.
I'd suggest programming your mother's phone with the new number but
She's MANUALLY punching in your number
(based on the fact that she's getting wrong numbers)
Who DOES that?
That ALONE is proof she's crazy! (I'm kidding. Sort of.)
But it's a pretty impressive feat of memory.
I'm also surprised that Mr. Wrong Number didn't just block your mother's phone.
It's what *I* do with wrong numbers.
It took me twenty-three minutes to get there by the fastest possible route: I had to take a toll road, but caught a couple of lights after the exit. I walked into the gap between outer doors and the ones which led into the lobby, signaled, and told the receptionist that I’ve had two days of bad phone calls. Including eight recent hours of listening to my mother sob in pain.
I didn’t want to go in. I wasn’t trying to get her discharged. I just wanted someone to tell me what was going on.
So her nurse came out to speak with me. And all this represents is a second opinion. Another take on the story, because I still haven’t seen anything as it happens. What follows is the nurse’s take, and hers alone.
She feels I am being gaslit by a dementia patient.
The leg pain is real. But she mostly sobs when she’s on the phone. She has gotten up and walked around, although only for short distances. The doctors have looked her over and feel she could be sent to the ER — and they would send her right back. They have no cause to treat and they’re not going to look deeper, although the nurse was glad to hear I’d scheduled the epidural.
Yesterday, she tried to escape. She put her jacket on and announced that she was leaving. (Turns out she was upset about being low on cash because she wanted the money for a taxi.) They had to hold the door closed against her efforts for an hour. She was calling me for some of that time.
Today, she’s moved around a little, she’s had some exercise, and she’s eaten. But the nurse feels she plays up the pain with me because she’s trying to make me take her home. And she’ll say and do anything to make that happen.
I have no way of knowing what the full truth is.
I took the slow way back. I stopped at a supermarket which has quarter-rental carts and got shouted at by a wrangler. (@#$% him. I just had to pay out gas and tolls, didn’t have any writing time, and my emotions are in turmoil. If I see that quarter before he does, it’s mine.) I’m currently in a take-out place because I’m too upset to cook and won-ton soup by the quart is both cheap and a full meal.
...and it’s ready. Heading home now.
I am so tired...
She called me again.
She said she was worried because she hadn't heard from me.
I tried to tell her we'd spoken nine times today.
I suppose that’s good news. Being gaslit by a dementia patient isn’t any fun but it’s a winnable fight (at least the numbers of surviving neurons are on your side), and it’s better for her than the alternative hell-scape she’s selling. You should just accept you’ve done what you can do and decide to trust the people you’ve decided to trust. Not really fair to them, there’s no ‘rehabilitation’ they could ever expect to accomplish here and holding to door closed on a mental case is not really their job, but I expect they’ll do a better job of it all together than you could all alone.
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I understand that this was very much something that you needed to check. It sounds like good news, though - it still sounds like the staff working here are professional, knowledgeable, and appropriately cautious. They're checking on her complaints, and doing what they can in response to them - it just so happens that 'what they can' isn't much, beyond letting the in-house doctor look at her legs and find no treatable cause for pain.
Your mother may very well be feeling a little lonely, but it sounds like she is being very well looked after on the medical side of things.
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I agree. You're gonna need some family on your side, Estee, and it'd be nice to have backup on hand when things get all kinds of bad.
"hugs you tight"
You can't keep doing this alone. You need help.
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Nor hospitals and health facilities overall. But, still...
I wish I could help beyond wishing you the best and echoing what others have said here and elsewhere. It really sounds like you’re the focal point for her anger and possibly more, that the best way to care for her is for somebody else to do it on a permanent basis. Not that I’m claiming to know everything, or that any of my and the rest of the peanut gallery’s suggestions are remotely feasible so... I wish you all the best with whatever comes next; fingers crossed it’s some sleep.
This isn't meant flippantly, but at least you're giving an education to those of us who may have to deal with a similar situation in the future.
It does appear your mother is playing up some of the pain she's having. You should record at least one of these calls to have evidence of what she's doing to you. The last thing you need is a well-meaning relative or family friend dropping her off on your doorstep, madder than a wet hen, after picking her up at the rehab center and driving her home, thinking all the while they're doing a good deed.
I wish I had a solution to your dilemma. In lieu of that, I send you all my hopes for better days.
I'm so sorry all this has been happening to you. I wish I could help, from my end. Let me know if there is.
I'm sorry, Estee. No one deserves this. I can't offer anything useful. Sending you all the love and support I can virtually, for whatever intangible value that has.