It's Time For Grandmother To Go

Grandmother's health has deteriorated rapidly in the last month. She's always been batty, but something happened when we came back from Italy in May, and then my parents decided they were closing The Store and I saw a further change in her, but finally, in October, her mental health has become shockingly frail:

• She keeps repeating that both of my parents asked her for money. I'm not completely dismissing it, but I just checked their stock portfolio; they don't need her money.
• She accused somebody of stealing our recycling bins from the front door. By city law, they can't be there. The bins are on the deck -- where they have been for years. Hell, she takes them back there after the recycling day.
• She is adamant about getting her welfare money out of her bank account as soon as it arrives. She wanted to get it today -- mistakenly thinking Halloween was November 1.
• And after I told her it wasn't, she later in the day asked if I could get her the money. She's repeatedly asked the same question a lot lately.
• We and my aunt went to see my uncle (they're not married) a couple weeks ago. She thought we were visiting my other uncle (the one whom my aunt is married to). She then said I didn't tell her which uncle we were visiting. Bullshit.
• She has thought the neighbors were sweeping their leaves into our backyard. I was the one who raked them into piles.
• One of the big things that I see about short-term memory loss on the Internet is that she accuses other people when she forgets things. Before I left tonight, she was feverishly searching for her checkbook. She wants me to take a check to the bank so she can get money. Even though she had a checkbook, she was looking for the checkbook she was looking for, and went so far as accusing her friend of stealing it in order to take her welfare money. I don't know for certain, but she just lost the checkbook.
• Father said she tried microwaving a pop can last night. She's never tried doing that before.

But the worst thing came this morning. I heard her rummaging around the kitchen, so I got up to check her levels. She was hungry and wanted to eat. Like I always do, I told her to wait until I got her blood pressure and blood sugar, and until she took her insulin shot and pills.

Well, I got her blood pressure, but when I told her to wait, she brushed me off and started wolfing down her cereal. She even huffed at me: "I'm hungry!!! You don't even have it ready yet!!" Except that I had everything prepared for her, right in front of her, on the dining room table, like I always do.

And then that evening she said she hadn't eaten anything that day.

To be fair, it's possible it was the medication talking. In particular, Aricept. I got fed up with her forgetting things, so I made her take Aricept the night before. But the nurse was right -- it does make people irritable. I think that's what happened to Grandmother. And it didn't help her memory any.

Still ... I'm being selfish here, but what I had to contend with is, I fear, what I'll have to deal with from now on. It is very hard for me to take Grandmother's yelling at me as anything but personal. Even if it isn't, the combination of the forgetfulness, the defensiveness and the paranoia are things that won't go away. I felt overwhelmed this morning, and I don't think it's going to get better.

I thought I could delay any actions toward placing her in assisted living or a nursing home till the next scheduled assessment in March, or at least the next doctor's appointment in December. Then Father told me about the pop can, and I thought I need to call the nurse after I go to the Megamall this evening. But after she freaked out over her goddamn checkbook, thereby making me leave ten minutes later than I wanted to, I had to move up the time I was going to call her. I wanted to make sure I reached the nurse during business hours, but I felt that calling her while at the house was being disrespectful to Grandmother. With this final episode, I left her a message at 4:47 this afternoon in the driveway before I started my car: Please begin proceedings to place her in a nursing home.

I feel like I'm giving up and abandoning her. But I also feel like Grandmother isn't the Grandmother I know. Again, I'm being selfish, but I can't see her like this. And taking care of her now, because of what's going on in her head, appears to be a lost cause.

I'm sad, but I don't know what else to do.