May 6th

May 6th stared very early for me, Ruth called at 8:30 saying that she had to ,"get out of this damn place .I will give you $100 to come and take me back to Arlington." I told her I would come over by 11:00 to talk with her.
I got to Corinthians at 10:15 to find her waiting by the front desk. As always, she was," so glad I was there ", and ,"she thought I would never get there."Carla(receptionist) just smiled apologetically as she knew Ruth had figured out that she had my phone number in her room which meant she could call ANYTIME...We walked down to Ruths' room with the same chatter as usual about how she finds her room and how the pink tape on her key lets her know which key to use. Upon arriving at her door she does the same routine of telling me how to put the key in and how to take the key out.
Ruth tells me she has got something serious to talk about as she points out that she has gathered up things from the room and out of the closet and has laid it in neat piles on her bed. She says she will not stay there any longer and will pay me $100 to take her back to Arlington. I tell her I would never charge her to take her anywhere but I cannot take her to Arlington...LET THE GAMES BEGIN...we spent 2 hours going over the ins and outs of being where she is. She is so upset with her sister Claire(that would be her daughter Cindy for anyone who is not in this stage of dementia) as she told me she called her this morning and told her she HAD to let her come and live with her..she NEEDS her and she is her twin sister and should help her...She is also still very aggravated with her brother Dick ( that is her son Mike AND Dick died in 1990) who had the nerve to say she had to stay at Corinthians for a while. I try to swim through the waves of confusion and help her understand who she is referring to and why they have taken the stand they have but it just isn't registering. I finally tell her that Dick died in 1990 and Claire has Alzheimers . She seems to come through the fog for a bit and she begins to calm down. She starts to put her things away and remembers I need to meet Lindsey for a planned shopping trip. She starts to put her shoes back on(for the 5th or 6th time in 2 hrs) and says,"Let's go down to lunch." ...I know I am supposed to meet Lindsey but Ruth hates going to the dining room so I can't say no ...off we go..
"The food is lousy..they can't cook anything...there are so many people here...I hate crowds...look at all the old people here...I never knew there could be so many people using walkers...I am tired of being here...I am so GD tired....I am ready to go,"she repeats over and over...the poor waitress gets the brunt of the continuing discussion of the small dinner plates(they are literally driving her crazy) and the lousy food. I will never be able to say enough about the great staff as they just keep smiling and try to help make her happy...saints, true saints
I am watching the clock as I know Lindsey is waiting when Errol( resident who likes Jeoprady) stops by with I. D. ( Isadore David Freed ,another resident who likes Jeoprady who Ruth hasn't met). The introductions are made and Ruth is complaining but I.D. is quicker whitted than Ruth and because he is on a scooter because of malformations of his legs, Ruths kinder side emerges and she takes his jabs in stride. We are almost ready to go when the lady at the table right by ours falls, splits her head open ..etc..etc... I was panicked at how this would effect Ruth so I tried to get her to go.She is adamant about staying to see what is going on. At 1:20 ,after the ambulance has left, I take Ruth back to her room. As I hug her I ask her if she is O K.She says ,"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" I explain that I was worried about how she was feeling after the lady fell..she says,"Fine"... Great, I can make my escape ...I remind her that Lindsey is waiting ...she says to go on, she is going to rest ...and then she adds.."you won't be gone long, when will you be back"....ARGHHHH... I tell her I will be back afterwhile.
In the 2 Hrs before I get back Ruth calls 4 times..."when will you be done shopping?"..."are you done yet?".."how long will it take you to get here?"..."where are you?"
Once again, she is waiting by the frontdesk. Carla says she has been pacing up there waiting for me to get back. She is so excited to see me and wants to hear about the shopping trip. She wants to smoke outside so we sit out there for a bit. We chat about shopping ,who I went with....who who who...I explain who Lindsey is about 10 times. We go back to her apartment, she is exhausted.
Mike calls to see when I will be home and find out if he should just fend for himself. I tell him no, his mom is tired and wants to rest. I tell him I will be leaving in about 15 minutes.
Ruth has decided that she wants to talk about Jack (ex husband, father of children) AGAIN...I try to steer her away from this conversation AGAIN but he seems to be on her mind a lot these days. The conversation is the same...he was a lousy father, why did I stay with him that long, why did I keep having kids(always followed by a long conversation about how much she loved the children and how much she loved being a mother and she was a Damn Good Mother if she says so herself)... she usually adds that Jack was a great cook but he never cleaned up after he cooked and now she has started adding that he loved SEX(oh my goodness, oh my goodness) ,that he was pretty good in bed and that he would never use a condom(SERIOUSLY>>OH MY FREAKING GOODNESS)...I will only add these comments ONE TIME as it seems way too personal but I am adding them this ONCE to emphasize how uninhibited her conversations are becoming. In her conversations she constantly asks if I know Jack and what the 'kids' think of him. I always say the same thing,"Ruth , I really only met him about 5 times and Mike really didn't say too much about him." It seems very important to her for me to acknowledge that Jack was not a great Father. I tell her she will have to ask the other kids what they thought but I know that after Mike became a father he realized that Jack could have been more involved BUT that he was always respectful of his Dad. That seems to appease her until the next time she wants to go over it again and again and again..
I tell Ruth I am ready to leave so she can rest and she says she will walk me out. We go by the dining room...people are eating...she says let's eat....ARGHHHH. We sit down, I tell her I need to call Mike ...she says tell him you are eating with his lovely Mom...I call Mike and tell him what she says ...he says he is sorry...I tell him I will see him later....we go through the same routine with dinner..lousy food,tired, hate this place...damn dinner plates.
Back to the room...same conversations ...Jack...Claire won't let her live with her...Cindy abandoned her on Saturday to go see those people she doesn't even know(that would be Tracey ,Ruth's granddaughter) and Wally...she doesn't even know who she is or where she wants to be...she doesn't know how long she has to stay here...she can't believe she has found a friend like me(she is getting agitated so there is no way I am going to try to explain for the 100th time who I really am)....she is not going to eat that lousy food anymore..etc etc etc..
About 7:30 she is getting tired and thinks she should sleep. I remind her I will be back at 9 in the morning to pick her up for her Dr's appt...we have another long explanation about that and I say good night...Ruth sleeps through the night with no phone calls..
It is difficult to explain how Ruth is now. I liken it to this season of the T V show Lost.She is transported forward in time, backward in time and laterally in time. There is no way to tell when she will "jump' again. She can be one place at the beginning of a sentence and another place at the end. She has no boundaries with what she says and has very little volume control when she says things. At this point she stays in a state of confusion about who is who in the family. She seems to have no problem with who the employees are at Corinthians or what their jobs are,her confusion just seems to be about family members. At the time of her move there were 2 Cindys in her life, now Cindy has not only doubled in number but Cindy is often Claire now. At the time of the move, there was only one Mike but now he has become Michael , her son...Mike , my husband...Mike the maintenance man ...her ex husband...her boyfriend(Mike says he is leaving the country on this one)...and Dick her brother, who visits her often....Currently, I am Teresa, her friend who she just met...Teresa ,her daughter in law( she always adds that I(meaning me) have to say that with a hint of her sarcasm)...the girl that comes over to help her all the time...and just some friend that she just met who has nothing to do with her when talking to the Dr...She cannot figure out who is who with Linda, Court and Nancy most of the time and she is so confused about Mike so I took her some pictures to show her to help her understand. She seemed to enjoy them for a few minutes but got very agitated when I told her who Cindy was in one of the pictures and quickly said she didn't want to look at them anymore as she didn't need to go down memory lane. Later that same day, she once again went off about Cindy going to those peoples house and as always I reminded her it was her granddaughter Tracey. She said she had no idea who she was so I got out one of the pictures again and told her I would show her. She said that would be great. I gushed over how Tracey was such a doll and that she was a beautiful, dark haired little girl . She looked at me and asked why I would say that and I told her because I only had light haired children and Tracey inherited her Dads great skin color and hair. She looked at the picture and said that made no sense and then she fixated on who Court was holding in the picture. Once again I explained that it was his son, Court...she said Court never married and that he didn't have a child that she knew of. Later ,she went back to Court by saying that it was a horrible thing that Court had done and that the family all agreed that it was his wife's fault...I sure wasn't going down that slippery slope as I know that is a TABOO conversation so I diverted her to her siblings again...Ruth has become very interested in talking about her childhood so when in doubt, I try to take her there. There is not enough time or letters to go through all the ups and downs of our fractured conversations. If Ruth stops talking, it is only in her sleep. She now breaks all of her cardinal rules about etiquette and interrupts anyone who talking to anyone by walking up to them and getting right in their face until they acknowledge her. She feels like it is her job to correct the "Ruth Wrongs" of the world and she finds those everywhere. She is equally devoted to acknowledging the"Ruth Rights" of the world with gushing praise and adulation. I do really get the impression that this tiny little lady is overwhelmed with all of this responsibility but that she will try with all her might to carry on as long as she can. Hopefully, the world will be kind enough to understand what a difficult time this is for this confused little keeper of the rules. Even though she can be trying, at her ugliest moments, I can still see the look of fear and confusion in her eyes and I hope and pray we can always be kind and gentle enough to make this time the best we can for her. Our care and concern for Ruth can never be determined by her actions, it always has to be determined by the kind of hearts we have ...next blog...THE DRS APPT...OH MY