Friday, August 6, 2010

My mother-in-law

For the last 3 weeks I have gone to the doctors and emergency room, both each week.  My mother-in-law, Janet has the on set of Alzheimer's.  She is still fun to talk to most of the time, then she can get really angry about stuff that may, or may NOT have happened.  By not happened, I don't mean something she hoped would happen, I mean something that did not happen and she thinks it did.  Luckily for the rest of us, she saves most of her undue anger for her husband of 59 years, Lauren.  Yes, we all feel sorry for him and try our hardest to keep her calm for his sake.
I knew she was not taking her meds correctly, so I got her one of those super pill organizers 3 weeks ago.  I can set up for each day of the week, 4 times a day.  Now that I have her taking all her medicine, we have new trouble.  She doesn't need all her medicine, not the doctors fault.  Janet would tell the Dr she was taking her meds, the meds weren't enough, so the Dr would up the dose not knowing that Janet had in fact, not taken the meds.  So every week we see the Dr for a correction.  Every week we get to go to the emergency room because something else is now hay-wire.  We will get this all balanced out.
Now if I can just get her to eat.  She says she eats, but each meal she's left to get herself, she eats a slice of toast with jam.  That is not enough of a "meal" to follow with all the meds she's on.  Not to mention she is a diabetic.  A low carb, low sugar diet is in order, Not toast and jam. 
Please don't take this as me ranting, I actually get good out of taking care of her and her husband.  It pleases my husband to no end that I will care for them as best I can.  It also seems to me that my children are far more likely to be good to me if they have seen a good example.  Not that I don't ever sigh a "not again" when I get that dreaded call for the ER, those are time consuming, but I do go and laugh with (or politely at) her and make the best of our day.

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