adding alzheimer’s to injury

This week mom had a tooth extracted. Because of Alzheimer’s, she kept forgetting what had happened and wondering what was going on in her mouth. I had things with the kids later in the day and her helper friend was with her, trying to make dinner. She looked over and there mom was, pulling the stitch out of the wound.

And so it was that the bleeding started and wouldn’t stop. Mom became more and more agitated, escalating, wondering why her mouth would bleed like that. She went through gauze too fast because she kept taking it out to look at it, or to wonder at it, confused as to why it was in her mouth. Then she would see the blood, and escalate again. She wanted my dad, but he was away for his Mayo treatments for Graft vs. Host disease.

Her helper friend was staying with her but it became a two person job, so at 9pm I went across my yard and mom and dad’s yard to help. I sent the big burly to get a tea bag because they say that helps stop the bleeding. I came in the door and tried to talk calmly to mom. She was combative. She would not change into pajames. Okay, that’s fine. She said she would not sleep. She would not go to her bed. Okay, that’s fine. She was afraid of choking on the gauze.

We gave her calming medicine, we had to. She sat there repeating the same things with a terrified lilt to her voice, no memory of the surgery. Can you imagine? She wanted to go to the ER. She wanted my dad. She would not take her shoes off. Her eyes would flash with fear, and her furrowed brow would turn angry.

I climbed into her lap. That’s right, I am almost forty-seven years old and I didn’t know what else to do. Weighted blankets popped into my head and I thought I should just be one right then. I thought about tantruming children, and how they sometimes spin to the point of needing their nervous system calmed and then they need to be held and held and held until it works.

She melted into my side. We held hands, hard. She put her head on my chest and started to cry. I’m so scared, she said. I’m so scared.

I know. I know.

I don’t know why, she said. I don’t know why it won’t stop bleeding.

I know. I know.

Words from my mouth started to sound ridiculous to even me. She won’t remember them, and also, is everything really okay? Of course not. Sometimes you have to quietly surrender, quit trying to fix it, and wait.

Maybe it was the medicine, maybe it was time. Maybe it was fatigue, maybe it was her daughter in her lap. Something shifted. She calmed down and in time the bleeding stopped. The next morning she had no memory of having a surgery or a crisis. She claimed the gap in her mouth has been there for years. She had no memory of any of it, including her grown daughter climbing into the recliner with her.

It happened. Her mind doesn’t know it, but maybe her heart does, and so do I.