Saturday, January 06, 2007

"William's Dead"

Mom woke me up this morning, her eyes open as wide as saucers. I could tell she was scared because she reverts to a child-like personality. "William's dead," she told me. "He's out on the couch."

William, her husband of over 40 years and my father, has been dead for around 13 years. I got up and confirmed that yes he was dead and had been for some time. There wasn't anything on the couch that resembled a person so it must have been an hallucination. I walked with her out into the sitting room to show her that no one was on the couch.

I distracted her by involving our cats in the conversation who were running circles around our feet looking for breakfast now that we were up. I helped her to the couch, she sat down, and has been asleep since.

I think this may be related to the new medication she was put on earlier in the week to resolve the dizziness. I will have to keep monitoring her behavior. She has been put on all the new Alzheimer's medicines but they make her worse instead of better. That could be going on here, too.

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