My 96 year old mother was recently diagnosed with dementia. She lives with my sister and I visit every week. Mom knows who I am when I visit but after a few hours she starts talking to me as if I am her cousin. When I try to tell her I am her daughter, she doesn't believe me and says that I am trying to confuse her. If I go along with her and let her believe I am her cousin, she talks to me about things that happened when they were young and asks me questions that I can't answer. Then she becomes agitated that I don't remember these events from her past.
The flood is kind of a funny story now, so..
I had been here taking care of my mom in her home for about one week when this happened. Was getting ready to take a shower went to turn on the water, the faucets were hard to turn. Well, it ended up coming off in my hand with old faithful coming out of the wall. I ran around the basement looking for the shut off for a couple minutes, couldn't find it so called 911. Fire responded with 6 crew, they also looked for the shut off, couldn't find it, ended up turning it off at the street. They then helped me to clean up most of the water then left. This all covered over about 45 minutes. About 5 minutes after they left, mom woke up. She slept through the entire thing, sirens, 6 firefighters up and down, cleaning up the water, etc. I guess there are some good things to say about hearing loss. LOL.
So lesson learned, bathroom fixtures will break, particularity in a 60 year old house. Getting new fixtures is normal household maintenance.
I told my sister there are some issues you do NOT discuss with her because it sends her into this cycle over and over and it drives you crazy, so you just have to keep it to yourself.
If any of you have loved ones with all these problems that we have been talking about but they are not medicated, you need to see a gerontologist and get them on medication, it will help them and in the process you as well.
Yesterday when my Dad and I visited she told the care giver who got her out of her room we were her Mom and Dad. Later she said it was her Dad and sister but still later she knew who we all were and said my one sister was the only missing one. She was right the rest of us were there. You gotta go with the flow. Sometimes she knows me, sometimes she doesn't but she does know she loves me and I love her.
One day in the doctors office I heard a woman yelling at her grown daughter, that she "had to go home to her children." The daughter replied, "Mom I am your daughter." The woman almost spat back at her "You are no one to me, you are a stupid woman who will not take me home to my children!" That killed me for this daughter, not only that her mother did not know who she was, but that she was so angry and horrible to her daughter. I hope I never experience that to that degree!
Early on in the evening I realized my grandmother didn't know who I was- and boy, even though I later felt that I "should" have been prepared as a professional, as her granddaughter, my heart hit the floor and buried into the ground a few feet. It was very hard. However, as the evening went on, I went along with her assumption that I was just a "nice girl" helping her. She asked who my parents were, and I told her, "Ida and David." She said, "My Ida? So, you look upon them as your parents, huh?" I just laughed and said, "Yep! Aren't they wonderful people?" She agreed and we spent some time reminiscing- she told me about their lovely little children (not so little anymore- ha!). Even though it was sad, I loved how much her love for us poured out in her memories.
The thing was, I was able to keep my cool and was careful to not correct her or try to pull her into my reality--because I knew it wasn't her reality, and I couldn't fix it. So, I went along with the story she'd come up with regarding who I was, because this story made sense to her. If she asked me something I didn't know, I'd just say, "Oh gosh, I don't remember!" And then I'd change the subject and redirect the conversation to a safer topic. For example: she asked when my grandpa would get back from the store (he'd been dead 15 years); so I said he'd be back soon, and then suddenly "noticed" her beautiful jewelry, which was her pride and joy. We talked all about jewelry and accessories, and she quite forgot that she'd been worried about her husband.
As I said, this is very sad and one of the worst things about this awful, awful disease. But, try to take away this: Your mother remembers you as someone she loves and cares about--she just can't place exactly how or who. But you are still important to her- hold onto that as much as you can.
It doesn't really matter now, you know, just not to make her feel bad about it.
Also I have two sisters, however the care-giving is left up to me and in the hospital I was there almost 24 hours every day. My sisters both work and are never around to be able to share these occurrences with. I am sorry you are an only child, but sometimes even when you have siblings they do nothing to help you anyway and you are still alone.
Best of luck with it. My mom remembers almost nothing of her past and that is sad cause I have pictures here that I have no clue who they are and only some of them have names on them.
Another time she got really angry when we got off the phone after talking to my sister. (Mom doesn't much like talking on the phone anymore) Turns out she thought we were talking to her cousin by the same name and since we'd never known her, Mom couldn't understand why we had hogged the phone. We called my sis back and they talked for a bit. When Mom got off the phone she turned to me and said. "it's really hard to talk to someone you haven't talked to in years." My sis said she could tell Mom thought she was someone else but tried to give her some vague answers that fit. She said she didn't mind just hearing Mom to talk to her over the phone was enough..
But it does hurt at first when you know they don't know you as you. With time I have come to accept it. She still thinks of me as someone she loves and cherishes spending time with. That is enough.
She thought a group of young girls were one of the great grandchildren she helped to raise and chased them down the path. Scared the crap out of me when I looked and she wasn't there. She also didn't sleep for about 36 hours. It's such an odd disease. She finally crashed last night. I have no idea who is going to wake up this morning.
As the alz assoc told me just treat them as thou they are the customer and the customer is always right! It works!