One day her caregiver called me on the land line to say that her medicine, the one she had brought in from Vancouver, was running out. The brand name is Aricept. I don’t know who makes it but I know I once discussed it with our neurologist, Dr. Pia Banico. She said that it was originally Ativan, a heavy-duty drug that was available before but has been banned since. I even remembered a local movie called Bubbles and the Ativan Gang or something like that. Anyway, Dr. Banico did not know if it was available locally. However, she prescribed another drug for my mother. This one is called Ebixa. Until this phone call from Linet, my mother’s caregiver, Mommy was taking both brands together. She also hated me and did not want to see me or talk to me.
Whenever I went down to see her, she would turn cold. I tried holding her hand but it went dead in mine. I tried to kiss her, her face would harden and turn cold. She would pretend to be asleep and no amount of effort at waking her would work. This sort of behavior made me decide not to see her anymore. Just call me, I instructed the caregiver. I am just upstairs. This cold treatment from my mother, however, really broke my heart.
I went out to check if Aricept was locally available. It was, but it wasn’t cheap. It would cost me about P400 a day to fill Mom’s prescription. I decided to text Dr. Banico: We are running out of Aricept, and to replace would be too expensive for me. What can I do?
Just keep her on Ebixa, she replied. So we did. A week later her caregiver told me she was looking for me. I came down to see her. She was friendly, sweet, kissable. We could talk. Not that I understood her perfectly. She talks about her father and mother and the people they help out. She talks about her relatives, most of whom are dead. Her vocabulary is limited, which makes her difficult to understand, but she kisses me back when I kiss her. She laughs when she plays with one of the caregiver’s children. She is so much more pleasant than she used to be. Clearly she doesn’t hate me any more. We had lunch together last Sunday and it was pleasant.
Is this a miracle? No, I don’t think so though I have not stopped thanking God for this change. I write about it just to let people know that there is a difference between brands in the medicines prescribed to Alzheimer patients, to any patient I suppose, but I only have minimal experience with Alzheimer’s Disease – or AD – patients. I write about this to advise their children that we have to check. I am convinced that drinking Aricept made my mother hostile and angry while drinking Ebixa makes her sweet and friendly. This has been my experience. If your relative is on Aricept and is hostile, check with your doctor if he or she can change the prescription to Ebixa and see if the patient’s behavior changes.
Again, let me say, this is in a way experimental. I have no doubt that there are patients who adjust well to Aricept just as there will be patients who will not do well with Ebixa but this is my experience and I am sharing it.
My mother’s lack of hostility has made a better person out of me. I decided to completely rearrange my home. I am a happier person now. I will start teaching writing again today. My world is looking up all because I found a way to fix the relationship between my mother and me. I changed her medicine brand from Aricept to Ebixa and her mood swung over from hostile to friendly. Isn’t that a tremendous blessing?