By the time we got there, my mom was in bed with her oxygen on, but not looking well or happy at all. And when she started talking, it just got worse. She was more than confused; she was talking nonsense and craziness. I realized she was having some pretty vivid hallucinations, and those hallucinations stayed active and strong all day.
I called my brother, who told his wife who is a hospice nurse, and she said that it could be a reaction to a medication change compounded by her urinary tract infection. Or she could simply be starting a transitioning process into death.
She said she was forced to watch a video the night before, and it had been sent by her three kids. And as she watched the dreadful video about how kids "bump off" their parents, my brothers and I were "standing in the hallway, laughing, and saying how great it would be when Granny was gone." (We never have called her "Granny," by the way.
I explained that my brothers and I weren't there the night before, and that we loved her and weren't laughing at her. She didn't look convinced.
She said that after the video, which she watched in the hacienda mansion that had pink marble floors, they took her back to her room and put her into bed. At that time, the room began to fill with powder and mist, and she looked up, and a "beast's head" in the corner of the room had descended from the ceiling and was pouring poison gas into the room. I asked if it was still there, and she said, "Not right now."
She asked how my brother was coming along with the plan to bump her off at 4:00. I calmly told her that there were no plans to do anything like that, and that I was trying to bring her home, although I didn't see how we could do it at this time. I have one sibling, my older brother, about 35 minutes south of me, and he hasn't helped much (until this past weekend when my SIL saw exactly what I've been dealing with alone for the last three years). Private duty hospice is very expensive if my mom doesn't qualify for Medicaid. We are applying for Medicaid, but while in rehab, she hasn't spent much of the money she gets from social security, because she hasn't had to pay for prescriptions. So she has more than $2500 in the bank right now. I'm praying the Medicaid goes through.
I also have to work, and my siblings work, too. My younger brother lives in VA, and has pretty much disowned my mom, so he can't be relied on to help.
My older brother and SIL offered to help me move her from where she is to a really nice nursing home in Titusville, which is close to their home. They said it was time to give me a break and for them to start helping, too, and I really appreciated that.
Anyway, my mom isn't eating. She thinks everyone is trying to poison her. She said her eggs and bacon the rehab served yesterday for breakfast had lizards that breathed fire in them, and the lizards had shot into her body and were breathing fire into her veins, and fire was like pop rocks in her wrist and popping out her ankles. She said she saw purple and yellow lights floating around her room, and lights flowing through her veins.
She said lizards were everywhere--under my chair, on her bed, in her body, in her food, and they were trying to breathe fire on her and in her and she was on fire, and the poison gas was misting about the room. Aidan was growing very distraught, so I asked my mom if she would eat some McDonald's. She really needs to eat. I don't think she's eaten anything for a couple of days. Normally, my mom would LOVE McDonald's, and she brightened at the prospect, briefly.
Aidan left, and I calmly kept trying to assure her we weren't going to kill her, had no plans to ever kill her, and that we loved her. I told her she was having hallucinations and tried to show her that what she was seeing and feeling wasn't real. I explained if there was poison gas in the room, everybody would be dying, not just her.
When Aidan came back with the McDonald's, she took out her fries, and ate two or three before she inspected the box and said, "Can you see them? Right there! Their puny dragon heads are popping out of the fries." Then she said they were poisoned.
I took the box and ate several fries and said they were delicious. I told her they weren't poisoned and she needed to eat. I opened the hamburger box for her and she ate three bites, then said it didn't taste right, and there were white poison things in it.
She kept complaining about fire and being so hot, so I felt her skin, and it did feel very warm, so I got the nurse and had her take my mom's temperature, which was a little high.
I explained to the nurse what was going on, and she said she would notify the doctor. She came back a little while later and said they were discontinuing one of her medications and ordering her labs.
Then my brother texted and said he was on his way. And Aidan said she was going to go home and get Monet in an effort to distract her from the hallucinations.
I thought that the hallucinations about fire, and lizard's and beasts, might have something to do with a fear of going to hell. My mom was raised Catholic, and she liked to listen to a certain priest on tv on Sundays, so I went to the case worker and asked if we could bring in a local priest to pray with her and give her communion. He said he would arrange that.
When my brother got there, we talked with the case worker and got things rolling to get her evaluated for hospice and transferred to the place in Titusville. My SIL works at that place, and she would make sure my mom got plenty of attention. And it's not too far for me to bring Monet on the weekends.
By then, it was 3:00, and I had promised Joe I would watch a new Netflix series he likes, and I also had to gather all the things needed to apply for Medicaid. Aidan was on her way with Monet, and my brother was still there, so I felt it was okay to leave. My mom also seemed calmer.
So, I went home and watched "Stranger Things" with Joe, and multi-tasked at the same time with Medicaid stuff. Then, Aidan called and said my mom freaked out when Monet got there, because she was terrified that the lizards would get Monet and burn her. And she didn't want Aidan to give her a hug, because my mom was afraid the plastic beads on her shirt would "weld" them together, since they had turned to silver and were on fire. And she was even too afraid to hold Monet for fear of Monet getting burned, and that really made me sad.
I called the rehab nurse and explained my mom was still actively hallucinating. She said the labs came back normal, and the doctor would be in soon. The nurse seemed confident it was the new medication that was causing all this, and now that it had been stopped, my mom should be back to "normal" in a few days. To me that's a long time to spend in terror.
Anyway, yesterday was a sad day.
Around bathtime, I was in a somber mood, and I decided to give out one of the most definitive things I've found in the chase. I posted the method to find it, and emailed Forrest. Then put a quick shout out on CC, telling them to look at my blog. But after a couple minutes, I had second thoughts, and took it down. Knowing CC, they would have ridiculed me no matter how convincing and indisputable the evidence, and I didn't want to invite that on myself right then.
Someone on my hot spot page (and I know who it is), has posted over 300 nonsensical comments in the past two days. It's amazing how some people think I'm so idiotic, yet they spend hours wasting their time posting hundreds of nonsense comments on my blog.
Wow, it's already 6:00. I'll leave you with one cute thing from yesterday. While we were watching TV, Joe fell asleep, and Hermione aka Crappy, fell asleep on Joe's leg, and Monet quickly joined her.
And then a little later, I cupped Monet's face in my hand, and she just plopped down and fell asleep on it.
Hello Mindy. Hang in there. You have my shoulder to lean on if you need it.