Lola's Joe's Fallen Delusion

The last two days Lola has wanted to stay in bed until 3:00 p.m. or later. Today she was up by 11:30 a.m. Sometime in the early evening, I heard her crying. This was the first time since my Dad's crisis that my mother has cried. My first reaction was to let her cry a bit to grieve and get it out.

Mother didn't just cry a bit and get it out. She began to sob and didn't quit. So I went into the living room and sat on the stool in front of her and asked her if she wanted comforting or to be left alone. Her reply stunned me.

My mother was crying because Joe was lying on the floor in the den and no one was picking him up.

Note here: she hadn't run out of Xanax so the hallucination wasn't, as far as I know, caused by a drug.

I gently told her that Joe was safely in a nursing home in Martin, TN, and that he was perfectly safe. Then I asked her why on earth she didn't call to me - I'd walked through the room twice trying to check on her because she was crying. Sobbing, she told me that, well, he was just lying on the floor and she was so confused she didn't know what to do.

Again I reassured her he was safely in a nursing home that  was keeping him from falling. Then, astoundingly, she asked me who was going to pick that man in the den up. Gulp. I assured her there was no one on the floor in the den. There was most surely was, she told me. So I walked into the den and across the clear floor space to show her there wasn't. Yes, there was, over by the bookcase. So I walked over to the bookcase. No, I wasn't in the right place. Covering every single floor space available I walked around the den. She still wasn't exactly happy.

So I distracted her with pizza for supper. That ended the saga of Joe in the den. She sat back waiting for pizza, which I had been in the process of making. She ate pizza and has not been upset over anything the rest of the evening.

Of course, it's now 2:00 a.m., and she's still up and avidly watching TV. I'm beat and going to herd her to bed after I finish this blog post.

Hallucinations and Delusions

To start with, when you walk in Joe's den, you can smell his dirty head. I suggested he take a shower and wash his hair. Why, he wanted to know. Okay, frankly, you stink. He told me he'd never heard nothing like that in his life. At least he changed shirts today. The last one he wore for 4 days and slept in it also. His nails are too long and filthy. I keep asking him to file/trim and clean them. He's gonna.

Well yesterday was one wild ride. Lola was delusional, irrational and combative. The worst part is, I think it was my fault. Her prescription of Xanax ran out, and I only realized it was gonna on Saturday. Come Monday, hanging head, I forgot about it. On Tuesday, Jeanne and Jill visited, and I didn't get to doc's office before they closed. I got there Wednesday.  So Lola went 4 days without Xanax, which isn't a class of medicine that should be abruptly stopped.