This is a photo of the dining room, although we did not eat there.
It became increasely clear that she was going into an alternate universe. First I noticed her getting slurry with her words, then some of the things she was saying didn't make sense to the conversations around her (although they did sort of make sense but did not jive with what we were talking about) and then she picked up this vase of fake flowers and tried to drink out of one of the flowers like it was a straw.
The BIL said: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" and she sort of came out of it, saw she had a vase of flowers and sort of shook her head and said, "hmmmm, I must have been daydreaming."
Those are the flowers in the vase. The daughter was quite taken with the flowers (prior to the straw incident). She knew they were plastic but didn't know the "water" wasn't real. She loved turning them upside down and seeing the "water" not flow out. The MIL kept telling her to stop it because we were going to get in trouble.
Right in front of her we started discussing her drugs and her schedule. She didn't really pay any attention to our conversation. She was focussing on her hearing thingy. Totally absorbed in that.
By the time we left she was acting/speaking a bit more normally. We found out she'd been given her levadopa about an hour and a half before we saw the odd behaviour so I'm thinking it's the drugs.
She might also be more subject to these hallucinations since she is stressed. Even tho this place is fairly big with a lot of residents (it seems that most of them are more mobile than she is and younger too) she hasn't (that I can get out of her) made many new friends yet. She's talking to some of the residents from her old place (there are about 10-15) and I know she's not doing any activities yet.
There were groups of women who were coming in from somewhere and they weren't being escorted like at the Towers. Maybe they were doing classes or came in from being out or something. It's much, much less insitutionalized there. But true to form the MIL was afraid we'd get in trouble for certain behaviours. She kept shushing us. I hate being shushed. We even cleared whatlittle noise we were making. The aide told us not to worry, we were not close enough to rooms to make a difference.
She'll adjust, I know she will. But she keeps saying how good she had it at the Towers. Hmmmmmm.
New topic: Here is a photo of the Gnawer aka Zoms or Zomba. See those giant ears? Other than his wild reflective eyes he looks perfectly nice doesn't he? He's a gnawer. Don't ever forget that.
New topic again: The daughter made these cupcakes for my book club dessert.
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4 comments:
Mama C's burrito was sort of booby-trapped.
I noticed her fuzziness the day we moved her. She was clear-headed, but, once we started towards the new place, she became more fuzzy. It has been that way since then: moments of clarity, moments of fuzziness. I think a lot of it is stress.
I do think stress has a big part in how she reacts. And the more she isolates herself the worse it gets.
I really noticed her not eating. The burrito she just barely ate even tho we fixed it so she could spoon it up.
The cupcake that the daughter made her (chocolate even) was the big surprise that she ignored it and didn't say much about it. I've never seen her not eat something chocolate and her not making a big deal out of the daughters artistic endeavors - was surprising but not after I realized she was in some zone where I don't think she understood that the daughter put a lot of time and effort into her creation.
I really hope she went to that crafting class even if they are doing simple things. She can't afford to poo-poo that stuff, it will come across to the others.
Wow, the flower incident is strange.
If they're doing simple stuff in the crafting class she can put her own spin on it and emerge the star. She should like that.
Wow! Those cupcakes! They look like a pile of spaghetti with a meatball on top. Those are intense!
She won't know until she joins the group and she was so negative about them last night.
She is pretty crafty but if she continues to act as if all old people are not capable so why bother, she isn't going to get much out of anything they do there.
I don't think she totally realizes that most of the people there are more independent and younger than she is. Or maybe she does and doesn't want to compete with that?
She's dropped all crafty things from her daily living in the last few years.
I do wonder if she is aware on some level that she goes away for a little while (like her trip with the flowers last night) and does not want to be embarrassed in front of new people. She gets highly anxious around any new situation.
So I think she needs time to acclimate.
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