Serves me right! I posted the self satisfied and smug Monique update and was seeing the future.... Then ....
Two days later I got a phone call from the home in St George de Didonne to say Monique was in a very poorly way and would I come in the next day?
She apparently had not been eating and hardly drinking for three days. She looked old, tired and emaciated and was very angry and aggressive.
Nobody knows what has set this off. It does not appear to be a 'step down' which I think we are all used to rather a reaction to something... Her brother did make a visit and despite him being in denial that she is ill and refuses to see the sociologue who runs the patient care I find it hard to believe he would actively do harm. But something has gone terribly wrong.
Monique refuses to eat much unless I turn up and feed her. Even then she only takes a tiny proportion of whats offered and if I insist too much she becomes very angry and threatens to hit me and sometimes does hit me.... OK for me but for the staff its horrible. She tells them to shut up and **** off... she threatens them with violence and that is a big problem in its self.. If she did become violent with the staff I suspect the home would move her out.... to a specialist hospital which is PC talk for an asylum..... OK the asylum would sort her out I suppose but I would never be able to get her back into one of the excellent Alzheimer's homes in France... They don't do violence...
She is happy to see me when I arrive every other day to feed her but that only lasts a few minutes then the full AD recriminations, anger, hatred of the imprisonment she is under, desire to come to live with me again or her mother or.... Real mess I can tell you....
Now I go in every two days and feed her - sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt.
Just shows - the game isn't over etc.... but it is very sad.... thought I had it cracked!
Michael
Two days later I got a phone call from the home in St George de Didonne to say Monique was in a very poorly way and would I come in the next day?
She apparently had not been eating and hardly drinking for three days. She looked old, tired and emaciated and was very angry and aggressive.
Nobody knows what has set this off. It does not appear to be a 'step down' which I think we are all used to rather a reaction to something... Her brother did make a visit and despite him being in denial that she is ill and refuses to see the sociologue who runs the patient care I find it hard to believe he would actively do harm. But something has gone terribly wrong.
Monique refuses to eat much unless I turn up and feed her. Even then she only takes a tiny proportion of whats offered and if I insist too much she becomes very angry and threatens to hit me and sometimes does hit me.... OK for me but for the staff its horrible. She tells them to shut up and **** off... she threatens them with violence and that is a big problem in its self.. If she did become violent with the staff I suspect the home would move her out.... to a specialist hospital which is PC talk for an asylum..... OK the asylum would sort her out I suppose but I would never be able to get her back into one of the excellent Alzheimer's homes in France... They don't do violence...
She is happy to see me when I arrive every other day to feed her but that only lasts a few minutes then the full AD recriminations, anger, hatred of the imprisonment she is under, desire to come to live with me again or her mother or.... Real mess I can tell you....
Now I go in every two days and feed her - sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt.
Just shows - the game isn't over etc.... but it is very sad.... thought I had it cracked!
Michael
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