I recently placed my wife of 62 years in a facility where they deemed her to be assigned to memory care rather then assisted living. We had gone through a rough period of continued arguing and imagined circumstances whereby she thought I was hiding everything in the house, including keys, Passports, money, checks, Drivers License, and others. It was she herself that was actually hiding everything. I would say that this was bearable if only annoying, however, the accusations progressed to insisting I was seeing other women or sneaking women into my downstairs bedroom overnight. If I went to the store for groceries and was gone over a half an hour she believed I was meeting something and would offer more accusations. Again, that would have been accepted as my obligation to my wonderful wife who had given me so many years of happiness, love and affection. Over time her accusations became worse and punctuated with violent aggression – hitting out, slapping, throwing things. At this time I had learned by experience that logic was out of the question and to circumvent the arguments I would retire to my bedroom or go outside on the patio just to put distance between us in hopes that she would cool down. That would sometimes take hours and hours but eventually she would apologize and swear it would not happen again. A few times it escalated to calling the police when she had drawn blood or hit a little too hard. Like many with dementia she could turn it on or turn it off at random so when the police arrived she soon retired back into her ‘normal’ self and offered them coffee or cookies and inquired about their families, kids, etc. The police were not fooled by this posture but were usually aware of the damage inflicted.
Eventually a turning point occurred. We had determined that my wife, age 81, needed cataract surgery and had made the necessary appointments, the first being a Covid-19 test prior to the surgery. I had prepared her for this and come the morning we were ready to go she thought that there was gong to be surgery that day rather than Covid-19 test. She broke down and started crying and I tried to console her by hugging her and assuring her that there was nothing to be afraid of. About that time my youngest daughter arrived with one her friends to take her to the test. She suddenly got angry and started yelling at them, took a swing at me with her jacket, knocked my glasses off along with skin off my nose and was threatening to hit both by Daughter and her friend. The friend immediately called 911 and police and ambulance arrived almost immediately. She again reverted back to ‘normal’ in their presence until they told her they were going to have to take her to Emergency whereby she started swearing, struggling, and refusing to go with them. They finally restrained her and took her to the hospital where she was kept for the next 10 days sometimes having to be restrained to her bed but eventually calming down. It was apparent at that time that I was not going to be able to give her the care she needed at home so did research on the facilities in the area and finally settled on one.
Background – Our Son was diagnosed with Brain Cancer and passed 2 and a half years ago. My youngest daughter’s Husband committed suicide 3 months ago and my wife has now been in Memory Care for one month. Through medication she has mellowed and I have had some good loving visits and some bad visits ending in her not wanting me to come and see her again. The leading subject now is that I am the one who put her there and I am the one that can get her out. She believes I am living the life of Riley without her and just enjoying myself to no end with other women, when actually my life is just one big crying episode without end.
The truth is, although she is confused about time and rambles on about things without any connection, she is also cognizant of me and the family and converses without too much trouble. She is also more aware and able to interact with others than nearly all of the other people on her floor.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best wishes to you both.
God bless you. I wish you the best.
In reality, she voluntarily leaves her room for meals. She refuses group activities and interaction with other residents, but is visited twice a day by the activities director. She is visited every day by the community services director. She is checked on every hour by the nursing staff. So, she is not “alone”.
I realize that your wife’s situation may be very different, but remember that what she reports to you not be the reality of what is happening in her MC.
Best wishes to you.
I recognize that truth and SO SHOULD YOU. Realize your own limitations, your own needs and wants, the value of your own life, and the needs & care your wife requires that is Too Much for you to administer.
Make peace with it. You lost your wife long ago to the disease of dementia. It wasn't your fault or her fault. It is what it is. And you're treating the situation with the respect and the honor that it deserves. And you are treating her the same way. For that she is very, very fortunate.
Wishing you the best of luck.
Now to the reality. Your wife is an expert at Showtiming. Showtiming is when a person suffering with dementia can turn it OFF in a New York minute and put on a Tony Award winning act of being totally normal. To the point where YOU believe it yourself. You've witnessed your wife doing this over & over & over again, like an actress, and a very good one...........and now she's doing it AGAIN, but this time, from a Memory Care location. When you take her out of the terrible, horrible, God-forsaken hell hole you've 'put' her in, THEN she will return to the loving, perfect, affectionate wife she was before the dementia set in. Except, the reality is something entirely different.
When she gets home, were you to break her out of there, she'll return to an even WORSE version of who she was when you had to call 911 to get her hospitalized, because she'll remember the terrible, horrible, God-forsaken hell hole you 'put' her in LAST time. The acting out will be even worse than it was before, medication or no medication, because she'll probably decide, once she gets home, that she doesn't NEED any medication b/c there's 'nothing wrong with her' to begin with that warranted her prison term in the Memory Care.
This is how a diseased mind works. It looks for someone to blame all the time. For the Bad Guy to point the finger at, which is you, unfortunately. Oh, she can play nice for a while, until she sees that she's not getting her way. Then everything gets ugly again, and you get to remember in gory detail why you had her placed in the Memory Care ALF to begin with.
Leave her where she is, please. Dementia only gets worse with time, never better. Sometimes medication works and sometimes it doesn't. Based on the devastating history you've had with your wife in the past, bringing her home will only likely result in more chaos, more acting out, more hitting & abuse, and more suffering for ALL concerned.
Before the plague hit, I worked in a Memory Care AL as a front desk receptionist. I got to meet with lots and lots of husband's who had no other choice but to place their wives in there b/c of stories JUST like yours, my friend. They cried too, but at the end of the day, they KNEW they did the right thing for BOTH of them. Why? Because there are TWO lives involved with disease; not just one. YOUR life counts too. YOUR safety and your quality of life has been severely compromised by your wife's dementia. Even though it's not 'her fault' that she behaves so badly, she still behaves so badly. And YOU are the one to suffer the ramifications of that behavior. It can't continue or YOU will be the one to die before she does. Even without a debilitating disease.
So, these husbands I got to meet in the Memory Care would come to visit their wives. Some would come daily. They would take their wife out to lunch or dinner, or bring her a small gift, etc. Sometimes the wife was happy to see him while other times she was yelling and abusive towards him. There was one man who's wife treated him absolutely horribly every time he came; he still came, every day, to take her out for ice cream, regardless. I honestly don't know how he did it. But he did, because it made HIM feel better. He knew she belonged in the MC, though, and had no qualms at all about having placed her there. Even though she wasn't 'as bad' as some of the other residents, she was certainly in need of 24/7 care that was offered there.
My mother resides in a local Memory Care, too. She, also, isn't 'as bad' as the other 23 residents and calls them all sorts of horrible names. There's nothing 'wrong with her' at ALL, and it's all my fault that she's there. It's where I 'put' her for no good reason. Which, of course, is hogwash. There is no way I would have her living with me; it's just Too Much.
Continued..........
I just read the rest of your post after I had posted mine, so I will now add to please leave your wife where she is at. Give her and you time for her to adjust. Like I said above, she will not get better, only worse, and no sadly you will never return to your "old life".
aware and able to interact with others than nearly all of the other people on her floor.
Why this long dissertation? Although everyone has told me that I am doing the right thing and, of course, to remember it’s the dementia talking, not your wife, I can’t help but think that she is right, It is me that put her in there and it’s me and me only that could get her out. Because of this development she has never gotten the cataract surgery she needed and we can’t find glasses that are adequate to let her read so her days are spent endlessly with no direction. Towards that end I just feel that with her new medication that maybe I could handle her back at home and we would have some resemblance of our old life. Any advice?
Thanks
Thanks
In any case, you have handled this. I would encourage you not to attempt to bring your wife back home. My fear is that she would regress, that her adapting would be made more difficult, and that you would be back at square one. I hope with time, and the taming of Covid you will be able to get out a bit more for yourself, even if only to Senior gatherings that can honestly be quite nice.
Wishing you so much good luck going forward.