No Bienvenidos, No Money

This is a long one. Pop some corn.

It's been an interesting night. Graham went to the dentist today - so glad that tooth is out and hopefully taken care of. We were at M&M's for dinner, and all was well. She was her usual self, no biggie.

Then we got in the car to go home. I asked her if I could borrow a suitcase for my trip tomorrow, and leave my smaller one with her. She said, sure, I can mail you your suitcase. I said, you don't need to - I'll come get it next week when I'm here.

That's when it started.

"Why are you coming?"
"To spend some time with you."
"Why are you really coming? There's more to it than that. What's behind this?"
(I'm shocked at her intuition.)
"I just want to spend some time with you, Grandma."
"I think there's more to it. Why are you coming?"
(Nervous.)
"To help you remember some things."
"You tell me what I'm not remembering. I remember everything. I feed my dogs, I clean my house. What am I not remembering?" (Very defensive, starting to heat up.)
"Well, you don't shower very often, you don't take your meds, you don't do laundry, and you do NOT clean your own house."

I don't remember the exact wording of a chunk of it. Just a bunch of defensiveness and irrational reasoning. There was no logic. And it's just not true. I've been here four? Five days? And she just showered this morning. When I hugged her goodnight last night, I nearly gagged at the smell of unshoweredness. I'm not saying this to be mean: I'm saying this to illustrate that I am not making this up. But the larger point is I never should have gone there.

Part of me was hoping she would just forget and move on (the beauty of Alzheimer's - you get do-overs and I'm certain that's the grace of God when you're with someone who has it), but she didn't.

"You need to just go on with your life. You are not welcome to come over if that's why you're coming."
"Grandma, I care about you and would feel like I was doing something very wrong if I didn't take care of you."
"Do not come for that reason. Move on with your life."
"You took care of me when I was in the hospital. You would do the same thing for me, right?"
"Yes, I would."
[more conversation]
"You need to know that I have a personal life and I love my life, so if you're going to stay with me, you may not tell M & M and B & S everything. Don't go writing everything down for them."
(I'll admit, this part scared me. How did she know?)
"OK, Graham. No problem."
(Silence. Her contemplating, me fuming.)
"Sometimes it takes me awhile to come around to things. I know you love me."
"I love you too much to let you get away with this."
"I know you do, honey."

But the damage was done. It hurt a lot to hear all that. I know, I know, I can't expect her to do the Dance of Joy at the idea that she's not taking care of herself and someone else has to come in to do it. But I didn't expect the meanness. Grandma's never, ever been mean before.

I called M. He's dealt with this over and over the last two years and has been bitched out by her over and over and I'm sure he's felt even worse than this. He's told her the truth and been ripped to shreds. I read some advice somewhere that says to be honest with Alzheimer's patients. Gently, but honest. BS. You haven't met this patient. [Sorry, I meant a Person With Alzheimer's. I was schooled by M today on how to be person-centered in my language (a class she had to take - we chuckled). Pretty sure shuffling the words around are not going to have an impact on her acceptance of this issue. But I digress... I mean, I am a Person With Digression.]

M told me to lie. Lie, lie, lie. Here's why you're here, here's why you're staying with her, none of it Alzheimer's-related. OK. I can do that. Makes me feel a little bit like an undercover cop, and a lot bit like a Big Fat Liar. I told him I usually feel it's better to be honest and deal with whatever hits the fan than to lie and have to deal with the lie and what's on the fan. Not in this case. I have to lie. I absolutely have to lie my butt off. Tell her what she wants to hear, and then do the right thing anyway. The part of my stomach that knots itself when I'm doing something wrong is just going to have to cool it for awhile. There's no other way around it.

I told M that it seems that no matter what, she has an undercurrent of suspicion. Tonight, she was frighteningly cognizant. All hands on deck, all the lights on, everything was there. She was even perceptive. Rational, no. But even when she's in the middle of a an Alz hiccup, she still has this undercurrent of suspicion. I think she knows, deep in her core, something just isn't right. But I think she's far too stubborn to ever, ever admit that.

So here's something relatively amusing:

Her stomach's been sour the last two nights, and last night she took the last of her antacids. I told her I'd drive her to the store to get more. (I needed some seltzer anyway because of the knots in my stomach.) We were on the way to the store and she decided she would use her VIP Points grocery card to pay for it. I had cash on me, so I wasn't worried. "OK Grandma."

We got to the store and she bee-lined it for the wine. I didn't say anything, and headed for the seltzer while she went for the Pepcid. I found her in the meds aisle and she said, "We're not using any of your money. I am paying for all this tonight."

"But Grandma, you don't have any cash on you." (I know, I'm trying to rationalize with her. Not going to work.)
"I'll use my debit card."
"I thought you lost it." She pulled all the cards out of her purse (which she miraculously found) and found the VIP Points grocery card.
"I'll talk to them about this."
"I have cash. I'll just take care of it. But I don't have much cash, so we'll have to put the wine back."
"Oh, ok. I understand, honey. I still want to talk to them about my VIP card."
"OK Grandma."

This all happened in under two minutes:
We got to the self-checkout and I quickly scanned the Pepcid and seltzer. I had Grandma scan her card, which she turned and handed to the girl at the desk. I turned around, paid, and grabbed the receipt, and Grandma grabbed the Pepcid and seltzer to show the girl with her card. Behind her back, I held up the receipt and mouthed, "we've got it." The girl half-nodded and half-smiled. Grandma was asking her about using the VIP card to pay. I handed Grandma the receipt and said, "Look! She took care of us! How nice!" To which Grandma gushed all over the poor girl about how sweet she was and thank you so much for helping us! I smiled at the girl and mouthed, "thanks." She half-nodded, clearly confused.

Pretty sure that's 007-points-worthy.

In the car on the way home, she said, "wasn't it so sweet for that girl to help us?? It's so late at night and she was willing to help us out. She's so sweet!"

Yep. So sweet. For lip-reading and playing along. She gets 007 points too.