Well, in the interest of keeping us all on our toes, it was another eventful day at Eason House. That staff really deserves an award for the past couple of weeks.

After I blessed giving a dose of the prn (as needed) psych drug the doc prescribed this week, I sat on pins and needles waiting to hear something. Would it calm her down, knock her out, or do nothing at all?  A couple of hours later, I got a text indicating that it didn’t calm her down, certainly didn’t knock her out, and seemed to make her hallucinations even worse.

When I got to the house between 1:30 and 2, Mom was laying in bed, but her mental status was off the hook. I can’t even describe what it’s like to see her like that. Whatever is terrorizing her mind must be absolutely horrific. It’s so painful to watch. I talked to her and tried to get her to focus on my eyes as much as possible, and while there were moments of peace, and even an “I love you,” she remained mostly inconsolable for the next couple of hours. I just sat there rubbing her head and holding her hand… feeling as though I was starring in a really bad dream. The epitome of helplessness – I couldn’t do a damn thing to fix this.

Around 4pm, after evening meds, she finally began to settle a bit. We took her to her favorite chair where she immediately dozed off for 10 or 15 minutes. From there, she fell in and out of a fairly peaceful sleep. She drank a glass of juice and half an Ensure for me, and even let me feed her a few grapes. I left around 6:30, and she was sleeping peacefully.

I’m praying she sleeps tonight. In the past 48 hours, she’s had essentially no rest. She got up at 1am today/last night and didn’t calm down for the next 15 hours. I honestly don’t even know how she continues to function, let alone scream for hours and hours on end.

I did talk to the house doc today, and the labs came back – she does have a UTI on top of everything else, which obviously isn’t helping her mental state. Hopefully an antibiotic will take care of that. We also went ahead and d/c’d her Fosamax (osteoporosis) and Fexofenadine (allergy), and cut the Diltiazem (hypertension) in half. Doc will be at the house on Saturday, so we’ll see how the ortho bp’s look then.

I’m tired and expect I’ll be on pins and needles tonight, just waiting for the phone to ring. But, what I’m feeling can’t possibly come close to what she’s going through, so I can’t complain. I won’t lie, though, I really need the couple of days away we have planned for next week, so I’m praying we can return to some semblance of normal in the next seven days.