Talk To Me!

My grandmother is feeling alone even though she is with someone 24 hours a day.  She feels alone and I feel frusterated.  Reason being she talks to me and tells me stories of old times and they make no sense.  I try to ask questions or correct her on some missing pieces and this only makes her angry.  So, over the last few months, I have found it easier to just sit and listen to everything she has to say and say nothing in return.  I let her talk and go on and on, knowing this is not true, and I don't say a thing.  I mean, what is the point?  Well, after some time she now feels like we never talk to each other.  So tonight I decide to have a conversation and get involved and as grandma is telling my mother a story about something from the past, she gets confused and starts to stumble and the story is not making any sense.  My mother and I try to ask questions and volunteer information we know to be true and grandma immediately begins to get upset.  She starts to raise her voice about how I don't really remember anything and mom and I don't give her a chance to talk, and she is NOT CRAZY!  This one I hear a lot.  Anytime I correct her or explain that I administer her medication to her now because she was overdosing on her own, she combats with "I am NOT crazy."  I turn into the enemy.  I turn into the person who brings it to her attention that she is no longer well.  She hates having this disease and knowing it is progressing and knowing she can't do anything about it. 

My mother brought up an interesting point tonight.  Up until now my grandmother would get confused on recent events, but she always remembered the past.  She could remember details of her childhood and of times long ago.  Now she gets her stories jumbled together and the details aren't there anymore.  She is getting worse.