Dealing with Dementia

Loneliness, Depression & Relationship Forum

Help Support Loneliness, Depression & Relationship Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

CallmeM

Member
Joined
Aug 31, 2020
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Hello everybody

I am writing you about my grandmother, a fantastic 94 years old woman. When I mean fantastic I really mean it, a woman that took care of everyone and never ask any people for anything.

She lived in her own apartment, but didn't leave the house as my mum, my dad or me came to bring her groceries. Add to that, we spoke about 3-5 times per day with her on the phone.
She was a really really sane person. Had her small fixations, but that came with age.
Until thursday.
Thursday when we called her in the morning she told us she tripped and her hand is bad. We rushed her to the hospital and indeed it was and needed to be operated, but we put it in a gypsum because an operation at this age is not recommended. So my parents took her their home to take care of her during the recovery.

All went semi well until monday. In the morning she was good, at lunch time she started talking about some basil no one understood what about. At 17:00 she couldn't recognize my mother and my father, I rushed there and she knew me. I left about 20:00.
Then, at 2 in the morning the phone call that killed every inch of me came: My mom was crying, while my grandma was shouting in the background they are trying to kill her and take her apartment.
Duo to covid, the ambulance came in 3 hours, 3 hours when she tried to hit them with her gypsum, phone or anything. The calmed her down and said simple: dementia.

Nothing prepared me for that. I am really a though cookie, or I consider myself at 33, but since that phone call until later on I could stop my hands from shaking. I was on the phone early in the morning with elderly homes to take her, to avoid a tragedy. All of them had 24 hours policy due to covid, but I somehow managed to take her to get special help with people that are prepared, but most of all, an elderly home that actually takes care of her.

Her mom went the same way, dementia. So probably is genetic.
I am calm now, as it is for the best, I think, but I am beyond broken. I can't understand how something like this can happen so quicky, without a sign, without anything.

That woman raised me, raised everyone, she doesn't deserve this **** to happen to her. It is really not fair.

So, please, If anyone has some input on this, do share.
It really help to talk with people that went through this.

Thank you,
John
 
CallmeM said:
Hello everybody,

I am writing you about my grandmother, a fantastic 94 years old woman. When I mean fantastic I really mean it, a woman that took care of everyone and never ask any people for anything.

She lived in her own apartment, but didn't leave the house as my mum, my dad or me came to bring her groceries. Add to that, we spoke about 3-5 times per day with her on the phone.

She was a really really sane person. Had her small fixations, but that came with age.

Until thursday.

Thursday when we called her in the morning she told us she tripped and her hand is bad. We rushed her to the hospital and indeed it was and needed to be operated, but we put it in a gypsum because an operation at this age is not recommended. So my parents took her their home to take care of her during the recovery.

All went semi well until monday. In the morning she was good, at lunch time she started talking about some basil no one understood what about. At 17:00 she couldn't recognize my mother and my father, I rushed there and she knew me. I left about 20:00.

Then, at 2 in the morning the phone call that killed every inch of me came: My mom was crying, while my grandma was shouting in the background they are trying to kill her and take her apartment.

Duo to covid, the ambulance came in 3 hours, 3 hours when she tried to hit them with her gypsum, phone or anything. The calmed her down and said simple: dementia.

Nothing prepared me for that. I am really a though cookie, or I consider myself at 33, but since that phone call until later on I could stop my hands from shaking. I was on the phone early in the morning with elderly homes to take her, to avoid a tragedy. All of them had 24 hours policy due to covid, but I somehow managed to take her to get special help with people that are prepared, but most of all, an elderly home that actually takes care of her.

Her mom went the same way, dementia. So probably is genetic.

I am calm now, as it is for the best, I think, but I am beyond broken. I can't understand how something like this can happen so quicky, without a sign, without anything.

That woman raised me, raised everyone, she doesn't deserve this **** to happen to her. It is really not fair.

So, please, If anyone has some input on this, do share.

It really help to talk with people that went through this.

Thank you,

John

Hello. I took care of my grandparents for a few years. My grandfather, also in his mid 90s, had Alzheimers / dementia. He was doing sort of okay mentally until I moved them into my house. Before that he was mostly taking care of himself and his wife. But, it was time for them to be cared for. He was loosing control. After they got all moved in he seemed to completely loose his mind. He was convinced I was his son not his grandson. He couldn't remember where the bathroom was even with a sign above the door and only 20 feet away. It was like he could finally relax and let go and he did so. I sure wasn't expecting that. I was counting on him helping out since my grandmother was bed bound. He had many mini-strokes after age 80. So, it's possible your grandmother had a mini-stoke that sped up the process dramatically.

It hard NOT to get confused and mad when the person you loved for so many years has become a stranger but looks the same. My grandfather would yell and scream at me and say really nasty things. I had to learn to ignore it all and try to change the conversation to something else. You have to set your feelings aside and become what's needed for them. Watching people age is really hard to do. But, it's even harder for the person. Well, until they have absolutely no idea who they are or what is going on. Then it's a matter of just trying to keep this strange person as happy and content as possible.
 
Thanks, Finished

It's quite hard man. I can't understand why this is happening, I can't see the logic behind it. I want to shout, cry, scream, anything. I couldn't believe such pain could be possible. 

I am reading, I am trying to understand dementia, but I can't understand why this happend to her. Why her.
She is one in a generation. Gentle as you could imagine.

It breaks my heart in every single possible way and I am trying to be strong for my parents.
 
It's a very sad process. But, it's part of the human condition. Time here can be shorter then we think it will be. It's a wake up call to appreciate the loved ones a round you. The person you know may come back to visit from time to time. So, don't totally give up on her. Remember the good times and think of those while you visit with her. It's okay to let your parents know how your feeling too. You don't have to over burden them. But, it's best to let your feelings out.
 
I was in a psyche ward, many years ago now. These aren't fun places; but, this one wasn't so bad. Anywho, they had an older lady on the ward for a few days. She was a dementia patient, that for some reason or another, got placed on our ward, interim, while they were trying to find a proper place for her (or so the story went, to the best of my memory.)

She was awesome. I remember her being perhaps one of the few people I got along with. According to everyone else, she was a crazy, senile, dementia patient; but, to me, she made perfect sense.

She told me that she worked on the farm, and she didn't like her job. I says to her, "I don't like my job either." heh. She was nice, and I listened. The words didn't have to make sense, if you listened the right way. She didn't like where she was, and what she was going through, and I didn't either. That's all that really needed to be said.

Ya know?

I don't know if I could possibly explain it any better, but, she made sense to me. I understood her upset, and her frustration, and, if I remember correctly, she was fond of me as well.

I don't know if that story will help you at all; but, I have found, over the years, some times, the best way to understand some one, is not to try and make sense of what they are actually saying; but, rather, to understand the context.

It's my personal conviction we are all, quite literally, insane, as we go through our day to day. True sanity, I think, is a rare commodity, comes in fleeting moments, or short intervals, and often looks to crazy people, like insanity...

Hospitals, doctors, beds, pills, confined spaces, isolation, and death... young or old, these things are scary...

My mother's ex-husband, I stayed with him for a while. He told me a story about how he was in the hospital and they were giving him morphine for pain, and he literally believed they were trying to kill him. I listened to him. he wasn't crazy. My brother, his son, just thought he was crazy from the pills, and speaking non-sense, and deluded. For my brother, the experience was hard, in a different way. For him, his father wasn't there. he was old, senile, and febile, and needed help wiping his own ass. That's very difficult. But, I understood the man. he wasn't crazy.

Demons and angels alike, roam those hospital wards, and those sterile places where people are left alone, to live or to die, to go mad, or be liberated...

A tender heart, listening ears, and patience, I think, can go alone way, for any weary traveler, lost in those halls, and cooped up in those rooms.

Perhaps your grandma remembers you for a reason, maybe you can still see her, where for others, she is already gone in some ways...

Anyway, dunno if that will help, but, those are some of my experiences... These people weren't crazy. They were scared, and upset. Why shouldn't they be?

Dunno if any of that helps...

I think death is about letting go of everyone and everything. And I'd risk saying that, for some, that is a gradual process, unique to each individual...

As far as memory goes. If I'm not mistaken, smell is most strongly linked with memory. Audio, is probably the second strongest, then vision. So, these things can be worked with, perhaps, if there is time to spend, and things to ponder and share...
 
Last edited:
It's sad to see anyone go though this. My step fathers mother AND father developed Alzheimer's, and I also remember how quickly it seem to come on. His father passed about a year later and his mother went from asking me the same questions over and over to ending up in a care home as she deteriorated.

There's nothing worse than seeing someone you care about go though any of this, and it's bound to effect some people more than others. It's completely [/i]human[/i] to feel so emotional. I think the worst feeling is that you can't do anything about it, you feel stuck, just like an observer. I suppose all you can do is stay strong and be there for them.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top