Rough Week

Yesterday I took my grandmother's pills away from her.  I have been in charge of administering them all along but have always left the bottles in the medicine cabinet.  But, yesterday I made the decision I had been putting off and I have moved the medicine into my room and hid it away from her.  This is something that I have been dreading but it finally had to be done.  I know she is not getting any better.  So, last night I gave her her pills while we ate dinner.  After dinner she asked me twice is she'd taken them and I reminded her that she had and exactly when and how she ate them.  I have to step out of the house and run an errand and it takes me half an hour.  Now remember, I told her right before I left she had already taken her pills, but when I get back I open the cabinet to prepare her morning pills and find the pill bottles have all been rearranged and some are out and I don't know if she took more or not.  So, for her safety, I am hiding her pills from her.  I am dreading the conversation we are bound to have eventually about where they are and why.  But, I guess this is just part of it. 

She has also been really bossy over the last couple of weeks.  She tries to be in charge of everything, me and the boys included.  This can be trying on my nerves.  She has been saying, "okay, I have to leave the room now, you are in charge of the boys."  She reminds me of how fast I am driving and how I should remember the "precious cargo" I have in my backseat.  I go the speed limit, but apparently 70 mph is too fast, even on the interstate.  When I have trouble getting one of the boys to eat all his dinner she begins to tell me what I have done wrong all day to make this happen.  Apparently in her day she did not give her children snacks throughout the day.  I do.  Also, she never drank anything with her meal, she always waited until she was completely done eating before she would drink.  I let my children drink and this is wrong.  And I am reminded numerous times a day because she forgets from minute to minute what she is saying. 

The kicker is, to a stranger or someone that doesn't talk to her everyday or live with her, she sounds completely fine.  You ask her what she did today and she goes through a list of laundry, dishes, ironing, etc.  These things sound completely believable and completely fine.  Unfortunately, nothing is true.  She doesn't do any of these things anymore.  I do the laundry and the dishes because she can't figure out which bottle of detergent to use, and she can't remember where the dishes go to put them away.  She also can't do the ironing because she can't rember where the ironing board is or the iron.  Old relatives or friends call that haven't talked to her in months or even years and she goes on and on and about ninety percent of it is false. 

I do feel sorry for her.  I think she must feel really alone because she doesn't remember when people come by or call.  She thinks no one cares or remembers her.  She also does not realize that she has alzheimer's.  This is challenging for both of us.