@Julie Chitwood

The speech difficulty can be a stroke. Speech can sound like babbling as a baby.. or like a foreign language .. or the words won't come out … sometimes a word or two can be understood. May or may not include drooping of face. With my mama that happened more than once. Most of time a mini stroke. One time it was a UTI … another pneumonia. Another time it turned out to be a heart problem .. type 2 mobitz. With the mobitz for a while she did not know who we were … just knew her dog. She needed a pacemaker, but she would not have survived the surgery.. taking her off one med helped. Her heart rate would get down to 30 at times and by time you took it again in a minute it would be up to 60.

Before mama came to live with me and my husband I would get phone calls from her accusing me of stealing photos. After she moved in with us that never happened again. I think she was not taking her medications correctly. Her medicine bottles sat on a tray and my brother would just sit it in front of her to take. She usually ran out of meds before she should have. Mama did get mad at me for not leaving her walker within her reach. She had fallen when I was not in the house. Fortunately my husband was here to help me get her up. She did not like me to bathe her… but she would wash her face over and over and one arm over and over. She would wash parts of her body as I told her to, but I would have to tell her she had it done and time to move on. Getting her in the shower once a month was a fight too.

Mama had horrible hallucinations .. some scared to her. Sometimes it was something simple like she would see a piece of paper on the floor. I explained to her that this stuff is not real .. told her to remember how her sister was when she had a bad stroke. She said Alice (her sister) used curse words. Mama asked if she had gotten that bad yet. She had not. .. and never did. Mama said she did not know I could be so bossy . .. that I was always the quiet one 😁

Julie is your bedroom big enough you could put a single bed in there for you? I have to have a ton of pillows to get some decent sleep and my husband has a noisy cpap. Before cpap machine I would try to sleep with him, but I could not get comfortable and he tended to thrash about and he hit my ribs one night. I said enough and moved to the living room sofa. A few weeks ago we bought a daybed for me. It has the rail back and the pillows I need for support of my back and my arm & shoulder work wonderful with it. We bought a trundle bed for it to and when the grand-girls come they can sleep there and I can go back to the sofa while they are here. More street noises in living room. .. but I can keep an eye on the fridge they like to raid in the night.

Just have to remember the acting out is not them .. it is the disease. They are underneath the disease somewhere. They seem to know it and I think that is why they wish the suffering to be over with. .. Mama said more than once this is just existing .. not life and I want it over with. She would beg God to let her die.

My prayers ongoing for Bill, you and Robin.

ZeeGee