I keep wondering — should I write about this? Maybe I shouldn’t, but I have become (not by intention but by default) the lay Alzheimer guru. Maybe I should write about it so others will do better than I did or so they will be prepared.
About three weeks ago, my mother entered a new phase of her Alzheimer’s disease. She began to scream, endlessly, relentlessly, sounding like a baritone fire engine or a drill, as my son remarked. Her screaming panicked me. It was disturbing the other patients in her home, in fact, the whole neighborhood. It went on, day or night, so long as she was awake.
Finally, I decided to bring her to the hospital, to Makati Medical Center, which is close to where I live. I rode in the ambulance with her. She screamed all the time. In the waiting room of the emergency ward, she screamed. She screamed in the elevator on the way up. In her room, she screamed, too. She would look at me blankly and scream. I was so afraid I found myself trying to squeeze between the refrigerator and the wall. She did not stop screaming.
Everything felt like an eternity to me. The time the nurses and doctors took to come and look at her. Please, God, make her stop screaming, I implored but God would not listen.
On the first day when the neurologist came to look at her, she sent my son and me off to eat. We rushed for the Floating Island and ordered adobo rice and kare-kare. Then, not content with that delicious meal, we ordered dessert. I had the most delicious leche flan and coffee. My son had buko fruit salad and coffee. Then as round and bouncy as two balls we found our way from the new building to the old one, and sat on a sofa outside Mommy’s room, way outside. We must have sat there until almost six in the evening when the nurse who would care for her through the night arrived. We were both afraid to enter her room.
The next day, I returned in a state of white anxiety. What is white anxiety? It is like someone slapped you witless and numb, but you feel no pain and you see very clearly. Colors are extra bright. Red is redder than it is and it hurts when you look at it. Everything looks clearer, but you are detached, there but not there. You know your mind is not working, but you behave like it is. Today, the nurse I want arrives. She will stay with my mother and just report to me by cell phone. I live only 10 minutes away. I will get here fast if you need me, I say. The doctors are examining her and will give her sedatives. This will take time, finding the perfect dosage takes time, but that’s all right. Keep her company. Take walks when you have to so you don’t get bored. Sleep with her so you can rest. Just keep me posted.
Then I went home. I ate a huge lunch, then I had an afternoon snack, then I had dinner. All I could think about was food. I finished the bread in the fridge, the canned goods in the pantry, I ate everything I could get my hands on. That’s the way I deal with anxiety. I eat constantly, not caring about my figure, not caring that I will get fat, not caring about anything at all.
When I went to the hospital again, my mother was getting pacified. Her screaming fits were fewer now. She would sleep a long time then eat, then she would scream for a short while until she fell asleep. Walking to her room that morning I heard a voice shouting names, “Sylvia, Toto,” something like that. I peeped into one of the open rooms and saw an old lady shouting those names and a cluster of people around her looking as discombobulated as I felt. She has Alzheimer’s, too, I thought, and felt a bit of a lift. At least I was not alone.
On the last day, we were supposed to check out at 10 a.m. but we left the hospital at 3:30 p.m. Everything happened so slowly. Once again nothing happened on time. All I did was wait. I waited in my mother’s room. When I walked in she was awake when she saw me, immediately she closed her eyes, like she did not want to see me. The nurse tried to make her open them, but she would not. She feigned sleep until it really took over. She never had to look at me. Did my heart break? Yes, into a thousand pieces on the one hand, and no, not quite on the other. She has Alzheimer’s disease. She is in the throes of its last level. She does not recognize me any more. It is so sad, but she is not herself any more.
Now, my mother is back in her home. She sleeps, wakes up to be bathed, eats, takes her medicine, then sleeps again. She is not screaming any more. Slowly, very, very slowly, I think I am getting over the anxiety even if for lunch today I had a steak I cooked myself, though I have not cooked for a long, long time. I put a lot of onions, some soy sauce and calamansi, and I ate it all with a whole can of sweet corn.
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