Time has passed..

November 8th my mother was moved from my house to her new home. Assisted living, 2 hours away.  It's been a long month for both of us. She is angry, homesick, more confused, did I mention angry? Yes it's all normal for someone with dementia to have a set back when they have been totally moved from their enviroment and everything they " know" as normal.  She talks out of her head, repeats the things she is angry about constantly, sits and just stews about the hurts. She has stopped talking to my brother, he has stolen her money and won't give her any. She refuses to go to church with him, she refuses to talk to him or his wife at all now. She won't go anywhere they want her to go, won't do anything for them.  I am sorry that she has imagined that he has wronged her, and that their relationship is not good at this point. But he has ruined our relationship as well, over this move. He has accused me of stealing from my mother, he assumes he doesn't need to share anything going on with her, he doesn't let me know what is going on, hasn't read the 8 pages I printed with her ailments, details about her life, her surgeries, her dr appt's needed, etc.  I know I am told he is taking care of her now, but to call her on the phone and hear her talking only about her anger with him, and what he has done, imagined or not, just hurts my heart. I cannot help her, soothe her, or give her peace of mind. I went to see her yesterday and she just talks tight-lipped about her relationship with him. I tried to reason with her about seeing her great grandson, and how that she can only do this through her son. She doesn't care.  Her dementia has allowed her thoughts to flow from her mouth, even when they are inappropriate. She is in a good place, it's clean, but she fights being part of the society. She refuses to go to some of the activities, she thinks people are stealing her clothes. She believes her clothes are rags and that I brought her used clothes. She even said I brought her mens pants! 
My heart hurts that  I can't visit more often. My brother didn't want me to come last week on Sunday, since that is the " only day" he takes her out to eat, to church and to see her great grandson. So in spite of it being the only day I could go that week, I didn't go.  Of course, she is angry with him and didn't go. Did he call me and say come on up and see her? No, just a five minute call is too much.  Our relationship, mine and his, has deteriorated so much that I won't be spending Christmas day with my family.  I am hurt and it doesn't seem to matter.  I have told him this, and nothing is worth fixing for him. 
Merry Christmas....

from zero to 60

From nothing to 60 is how my brother operates. He called me a week ago from today and said he was coming on the following Friday to inform mother that he was taking her to Assisted Living near him. He has decided that the assisted living I found near me, is a dump. He has decided that she has a bad taste in her mouth for it, which in reality, she will have a bad taste in her mouth for any of them. I wasn't told when he was planning the move. My brother's way of communicating is if you don't ask he don't tell. I know its bad grammar! lol ... I had to call twice to find out that he had planned to come on the following Tuesday to collect her and all her things. I was told to get her a TB test and pack all the things she needed by Tuesday. I didn't even discuss it with her on Friday, I brought it up on Saturday morning, and she wasn't even aware it was happening this soon, or the reality that it was a final move. She is under the impression that she is staying for just a few days and then coming home. No you are not coming home.  I have had to call and see what furniture she might be able to take, what exactly needs to go.. no one has the answer.  My sister in law attempted to say toothbrush,  really???? She needs a toothbrush?
I can't get her a TB test, she tests positive for it always, because she was exposed to TB when her father died from it.  So then get a chest xray.  I let him take her to get a chest xray when he came on Friday. He said they had to wait 2 hours. LOL Welcome to the world of waiting. My sister in law said that he was touched by my email asking for help. Which one? the 5th or the 6th? lol... I am a little bitter.
I spent the weekend packing and unpacking what she had gathered. She keeps saying they won't take her and all her stuff, they will send her home. I fixed pictures for her to take, went to Walmart 1000 times and took her shopping for clothes.  Thanks for the short notice.
I am happy she is going to be looked after, don't get me wrong, I am happy he made a decision and is helping somewhat.  This is like being an alcoholic, you can't just stop drinking overnight, my daughter and I have based all our thoughts the last 8 years, will mom like it, will mother be okay? we have to feed mother before, we need to make sure mother has this. It isn't something you can turn off overnight.
I wish her well, but she just said in 10 days I will be coming back just you wait and see.
Oh mother...

just how did we get to this point?

My brother is putting the finishing touches on mother's money being put in a trust. I asked him why this was so important other than obvious, since she will have to go to assisted living. His answer was in case she gets married and the ole coot tries to get her money away from her.  Married? My brother obviously has no sense of reality where his mother is concerned why else would he make a statement like that? I emailed him this week, mentioning mother's foray with a new medicine, that left her incoherent, completely immobile for part of the day, no clear speech and just bewildered. Second email about the fact the assisted living spot has a private suite now available and she could move in very soon.  I got a one sentence email that said we are putting finishing touches on the trust and moving now wouldn't be a good idea. OH YEAH? no name no thanks for taking off work to stay with mother on thursday when she couldn't function, nothing about her health issues.  I write frequently to let him know what is going on and never hear a word.  Why does this frustrate me so, and why doesn't he care enough to do anything to help me? I recently signed 67 savings bonds, copied each of them, recorded them on official paper and mailed them off, registering the mail so it would arrive safely. Only thing he had to say was hurry up and get that money in the bank, and amazingly mother remembered I was working on this and has asked me several times when she was going to get her money. But last weekend she asked me who my mother was....
Dementia has had it's way with me for too long now, I am not liking it one bit.

More BUGS

Mother went to the Dr on Wednesday.  She never tells him anything anymore about what is wrong with her, new or old, I have to prod, and tell him what she has told me that bothers her this visit.  But she did have something to ask him about, she said " I am going to ask him about the bugs." ..... please don't mother, he will just think you are crazy, well I am going to ask him and see if he has them in his house.  So sure enough, he pops back in and she says well... " I want to know if you have little black bugs that hold on to each other and form a perfect circle in your toilet?" Her Dr is so very smart, very knowledgeable about things, he said well no and explained how older people get floaters in their eyes and they can even appear to wiggle making them think they have bugs.  She has found bugs in raisins, says they are packed under the sink, invading her cereal. In the cereal they were at the bottom of the sack and the bottom of her bowl after she had eaten all the cereal and just milk was left.  She said they are in my cereal too! He said has your daughter seen them? " NO, she doesn't believe me."  Well he said if someone else sees them, then they are real, otherwise they are not.  PFFFFFT she replied I am going to save some and bring them to you next time, he snickered and said well make sure they are the ones out of the cereal and not the toilet!! LOL He further told me this can be compulsive/ocd behavior and she might have to have drugs if she continues in this way.  She said you told him not to believe him so that's why he denied knowing they are at his house too.

Yelling...

Yelling, screaming, insults, bad words, cursing, threats, is not what I envisioned for my household after I got divorced.  I yell, my daughter yells, screams, almost curses but doesn't cause she knows she will get in trouble, mother yells, curses ( althought we never were allowed to think a curse word around her) and threatens.  The yelling starts between the two of them, soon as they lay eyes on each other morning, afternoon or night. I just cannot abide it, and yet I cannot control it.  I can't be here in the afternoons when my daughter gets home from school, and they are here alone. I can control it when I am here, but then it transfers to me from one of them. I understand my daughter being frustrated, it's very hard to be 17, selfish, and wanting life to be different, but it can't be because you have very certain restrictions.  Can't go away over night, can't be out late, must make sure nana has dinner, can't be truly spontaneous, can't always go to dinner when we want, etc.  She tries to help her Nana and she does alot for her, but her Nana sees it as trying to control her, make her less independent and fights like a wild woman.  Mother answers my daughter with a scream, with an insult last one was , " you should have been drowned in a pool of water when you were born."  She sputters, yells and almost cannot articulate at times she gets so angry.  I understand mother being frustated, her world is so much different than it was, she can't think, she can't remember, she can't see, she can't walk well, she is totally dependent on us for almost everything, including dialing the phone. Her independence is shredding before her eyes.   I yell to stop the two of them, that doesn't help. I feel really out of control and very very sad that our life has disintegrated into this kind of communication. It makes me go to my room instead of interacting with these two, I do this all the time even though I want to spend time with them, I cannot. I can't take the fighting,  alot of the time when I leave the area they tend to settle down, sometimes not. I get calls at work in the afternoon, SHE DOES THIS, I DO NOT I hear in the background... sighs..
The time is coming for a change and it will have to be sooner than later. We all deserve a better life.

BUGS BUGS BUGS

Bugs in the toliet, bugs on the wall, bugs falling on me in the shower, bugs in the sink, bugs on the counter. "MY bathroom is full of bugs." I am not sure how to convince my mother that she doesn't have a bathroom full of bugs.  SEE BUGS ON MY SOCKS.. no bugs on your socks that is lint. It won't even come off your socks, " THAT'S right the bugs are holding on." She scrubbed her toliet and said she got all the bugs, they form a ring in the toliet. I told her there wasn't bugs in there it was just a ring that forms in the toliet. She stuck her hand down in the water and up the hole where everything goes and rubbed and rubbed. I lost my cool, I yelled at her what in the hell are you doing? Why would you put your hand in that toliet and reach up there? she said she was stirring up the bugs.  she showed me her light switch that is on the wall beside her toliet. "SEE BUGS!" no bugs mom... Do I mention what it is? She turns over her booster seat on her toliet and says " SEE BUGS!" Do I mention what it is?
Okay, yes I do, it's poop, and yes it's nasty and yes it's terrible, but she has poop on the seat, poop on the light switch, poop on the sink in spots.  She also has a large chocolate bar in her bathroom and it has chocolate crumbles that fall on the sink. She has very bad eyesight and can't distinquish what she is looking at when I show her.  She doesn't believe that it is poop on anything, even when I wet toliet paper and scrub it off the seat and off the light switch and show her.
Is this dementia making her delusional? She has gone on about bugs for 3 months now and there are a few little bugs but they aren't forming a ring in her toliet and holding on to each other to be scrubbed out...
I wish I could handle this better, but I didn't handle it well.

Damned if you do, Damned if you don't...

"My son is coming? Why is he coming today?" well it started off well, I got to have the preemptive strike that he had bullied his way into coming here, without asking.  She was receptive to the idea, till her dementia took hold of her comprehension. Then it was a diabolical plot to throw her out of the house. She willingly went along, scoped out the facility, got back in the car grim faced and rigid of body. She was mad.  Her son took us to lunch, and afterwards, didn't come inside to hear anything, just left after requesting documents from me. She fumed and slept and wouldn't talk the rest of the day. Her paranoia took hold and the story was wild by the time it got to be nightfall. She was very angry, wouldn't eat dinner, wouldn't speak hardly.  My daughter had babysat that night and I had to go pick her up, my mother started crying in the car, saying " I've always loved you, always been happy in the house, can't believe you are doing this to me. You two plotted and planned and couldn't even tell me about it, just threw me into the car and made me go to that pigpen." This is hard enough for me without this, but I also realize probably most of the people that have to go to assisted living will use the same tactic.  I explained how she "stews" over things, how she becomes obsessed as part of her dementia and I was trying to prevent that from happening and thought it best to tell her the day of not before.  I explained she repeatedly said she was unhappy here and of course she denied that. She said she had always been happy here and couldn't understand any of this. I explained that she would be able to make friends, she said never. I explained it was better to go before your mind was gone altogether. She said not going to happen.
My anger goes to my brother, who didn't call the day after to hear or talk to his mother. She was totally discombobulated, couldn't articulate her thoughts and highly agitated. She was still angry, bitter and wouldn't talk much with us at all. Of course he wouldn't call he would have to hear from her what she thought he had done.  Coward is all I can say, once again I'm left with the pieces.
I have decided she is not going right away, they do have room. I am going to let her sit here in the house lonely while I go back to work, and my daughter goes back to school and let her think of the fact there is somewhere that she can go and not be lonely.  Meanwhile, my brother insisted I take her there to eat lunch and dinner on Monday, my last day of vacation, HA not going to happen.  He didn't ask about any plans of mine,  I refuse to prolong this agony the last day of my vacation.
Another tactic is needed, am giving a lot of thought to having someone come in and check on her, maybe fix her lunch, take her places.
Frankly, I am tired.

It just seems too much...

So I asked for help, I shouldn't be surprised at what I got. Superman flies into town today to take over the decision about where our mother might be staying for the possible rest of her life. I asked for his help, his understanding of the situation here, and I got Superman acting like a dumbass.  While I understand most men are hardwired for a "fix," after 8 years of taking care of our mother EXCLUSIVELY, and 8 years of making decisions for her EXCLUSIVELY, I need a little respect.  While it was fine for me to make all the decisions alone, now he needs to be involved, telling me what paperwork he needs, telling me he needs to see the facility, he needs to talk to admin, he needs to come today. This is my last weekend before I start back to work on Tuesday. The summer as you could see from other posts has been fraught with mostly downs. The friends I would talk to that would say oh let's have lunch, a movie, never call back, and while I am not pursuing them, sometimes it is all I can do to get out of bed and carry on through the day at this point.  I needed them to carry through. He didn't ask if he could come today, he just said he was coming and he cannot take off during the week. Well frankly folks, this is a lie, he just went to see his wife's very weatlhy aunt for her 95 birthday in another state and more than likely took off a day for that. He had a new grandchild and he took off two weeks for that.  There is no courtesy, respect, consideration from my brother at all, again treating me like a 12 year old child, that while is responsible, only just enough to get things done, but not enough to respect my effort.
Not one thank you, sorry this is so hard, wished I could have done more, I feel for you and your daughter, appreciate all you have done for our mother, all the hours, money, angst, emotion you have put out in 8 years, just nothing.
I truly feel very alone at this point in my life, I have no one to help me, no one has my back, I can't call anyone and complain. Sure everyone says oh call me, but not really ... they really can't be bothered.

Thanks for the help

I have emailed my brother to ask him for help in finding an assisted living facility for our mother.  I got a one sentence reply  "Moving here at the present time would be hard finding doctors to attend her needs."  Not I am sorry I can't help you, not I will be glad to find somewhere for her to live, not I am sorry you are having a difficult time, not I am aware you have a child to raise and it has reached a crisis point in your house. Just one sentence, not even his name typed on the reply.  Am I wrong to feel just highly disappointed in the fact that my only brother, my mother's only other child, has just refused to help me? I have taken care of our mother for 8 years. He has helped me twice, once when I went on a choir tour with my daughter for 7 days he had her at his house, this past November my daughter was 16 and he came and stayed less than 24 hours in my house.  I cannot begin to convey the hurt I feel at reading this one sentence.  I explained it was reaching a crisis point, she is not happy here, and I need help. The facilities here are quite limited, the large amount of facilities up there is beyond belief. He is about to retire and therefore he and his wife have no intention of looking after his mother.  While I can appreciate this fact, taking care of someone in your home 24/7, all the doctor appointments, errands, mood swings, dementia, anger, expectations, disappointments doesn't in any way compare to visiting someone in an assisted living facility. Pretty much all you do is go, check and leave.
I am profoundly sad at this point, and although I have always known my brother, me and his mother don't share the same intimacy level, it is still his mother as well.  He is in control of her finances and assumes his quota of responsibility ends there. It does not.  A highly involved Christian in his church should read his bible and understand he has a responsibility to his family, which includes his mother and his sister. 
I am not expecting them to take her into their house, which is highly impractical considering they bought an unfriendly to elders house.  Many steps, just one bedroom on the first floor, a dog that rules the basement level which has a bathroom and living area and bedroom.
All that comes to my mind now, is thanks for nothing.

I know it is not easy...

The third person in the house isn't having an easy time dealing with the declining mental health of her grandmother.  While I realize at 16 1/2 most are only interested in themselves to the nth degree and this is so in my household. I raised a beautiful, intelligent daughter, but she is just about as selfish as she can be at this point and it's not the time for that. I am trying to find an assisted living facility for my mother and she knows this, has been with me, she wants to be actively involved in this decision. But she cannot keep the contempt, the frustration out of her mouth when she speaks to her grandmother.  No respect for the age, no respect for the relation. I feel very close to backhanding at least once a day. Yesterday her grandmother needed to go the bathroom. We were downtown and its a busy place at lunchtime on Friday, small town downtown. Not alot of parking or options for the bathroom, I suggested she get out with her grandmother and I would circle, no go. She had a 3 year old tantrum about how she is tired of taking her grandmother to the bathroom and refused. I explained I would have to find a place to park, park, maneuver mother out of the car, take her in and then repeat the reverse process of getting her in the car.  She didn't care, she proceeded to shriek.  She even commented she's wearing a depends she can go in there. So inappropriate, only good thing is that her grandmother didn't hear her.  Although all the yelling makes mother very nervous and she threatens to jump out of the moving car.  Fine, we will drive home, 20 minutes and the errands downtown will be cancelled.  She continued to yell, I pulled over my car and physically removed her from my backseat and made her stand on a sidewalk beside the car for 10 minutes.   When she got back in, she said " YOU REALIZE I COULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN??? YOU WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO GET OUT OF THE CAR..." " YOU DONT KNOW HOW EMBARRASSED I AM?" Truly I am at wits end with this, I don't know how to help her, soothe her or make her understand it's just something we have to endure till it is over. As a result of not wanting to be helpful, she lost her facebook account, her phone and is not allowed to use my electricity to charge her ipod touch. If you don't want to be a part of the family, then the things I pay for will be mine!
Being in the middle is not the best spot, being on either end isn't either. The only spot that is okay is my brother's 100 miles away and not having to deal with any of this. Which opens another whole can of worms... squiggly and messy.

2 Disasters in One Week

The house was hot, and getting hotter. Mother came panting into the room and said I think I am going to die. I said well I doubt you will die from this heat. Checked the thermostat, 88, 89 ... We will have to go stay in a hotel they cannot fix it tonight.  I pack her cosmetics and attempt to get her to give me some clothes to put in the suitcase.  She is walking in circles worrying about the cat. The cat will not survive. The cat will not know what to do while I'm gone.  I tell my mother I don't think we need to suffer because of the cat, and she will survive over night.  We get to the hotel, and mother cannot move in the bed.  She is disoriented and her body refuses to do what she wants it to do.  She physically cannot make her legs move so she can relax in the bed. I have to help her move further in the bed.   Day 2, we have high hopes should be fixed. New compressor, heat is bad at 2 pm, we know it won't be fixed in time to sleep in the house, mom has gathered more clothes and many polident tablets.  We get to the hotel early, go get something to eat and I suggest a nice shower and she refuses saying she cannot even think.  Her speech has become very agitated. She cannot articulate what she wants, screams and then just says shit! We get home the next morning and its very hot in the house, but it appears late in the day to be getting cooler.  She just sits in front of a fan and sleeps, wakes up, goes to the bathroom,  slumps back into the chair and lets the fan cool her.
Monday night the storms come and the power zips off.  We call and they say it will be off for 2 hours. I was almost finished with mother's dinner and so I took care of the food, put it into containers. I left the plastic lid on the stove and ran out to Wendy's to get her a hamburger, gone 15 minutes.  We come back home and to the garage open, door to house from garage open, front door open and smoke rolling out, the fire alarm blaring through the neighborhood. Seems the power came on and the plastic lid went up in flames and mother was home alone, she said the flames went up to the ceiling. She didn't call 911, she didn't call me. Said she couldn't think and yes I believe it.  She was framing the door to the garage to the house and panting. House full of smoke, fortunately her cat didn't get out or she would have stroked.  Microwave and stove are ruined, but she was safe.
 I am sorry mother it was my fault.

Father's Day

Today is Father's Day. Where to start? My dad was born in 1921. He grew up on a farm, so the depression didn't hit them so hard there. He didn't wear shoes anyway, so who needed them? My father was a charmer, he could tell you stories that you believed and then when you hit the punchline, you realized you had been taken again. He told my childhood friends that it rained worms. How can it rain worms they said? He said how else do they get on top of the sidewalk? I don't remember alot about my childhood regretfully. My father drank alot when I was very young, I don't know when he quit exactly, but I must have been around 11 or a little older. He smoked as well.  He quit after we hounded him into quitting, siting grandchildren that didn't need second hand smoke ( my brother's childen), and that he needed to quit. He quit but 27 years later he was diagnosed with lung cancer. I knew the moment I was told, that it wasn't a good thing. They never removed the tumor from his lung, he had it in a rib and some lymph nodes in his neck.  Chemo, radation that was just horribly intensely painful followed. He couldn't talk for 3 months because his throat was so raw. My father would have walked through fire to stay with my mother, because he already saw what was happening to her during his 18 month fight with cancer.  My father loved my mother beyond infinity. They were married 58 years when he died.  He asked me when he was in the hospital at the end to make sure that I would take care of my mother.  I'm sure he knew it would be hard for us both, we were not compatible creatures, then again all I know is he wanted an answer that someone take care of her.  My father looked at me one day when I had yelled and was so angry and said you aren't happy, you need to do whatever it is to make yourself happy. From my father that was deep, he didn't expound emotionally ever except physically affectionately. Well Dad,  I am taking care of your wife, my mother and I got divorced. I can't say at this point any of this is making me happy, but someone told me I had the patience of Job, it will come.  I miss you Dad, I love you and think of you everyday.  I am sorry my mother lost you before she should have.  The only good thing is that with time her hurt at your death and being left behind has faded.  She hardly remembers what he died from or the long agonizing 18 months before.  Happy Father's Day Dad!

That's NOT what I said !!!!

Well what did you say? This is a new issue. My mother will open her mouth and what she wants to say comes out mixed up totally.  We look at her to see if she realizes what she is saying is nonsense and acknowledge it is not quite right, or we say that didn't make much sense, can you try again?  She EXPECTS and WANTS me to decipher what she is trying to say when she does indeed realize it wasn't like it should be.  My frustration level is high, and I can only wonder what it feels like to sorta know that what you said makes no sense. Alot of the time, she looks at us like that was right wasn't it???? We laugh lightly and say no.. not quite.  She wanted to call her good friend that prepared meals with her on Saturdays at her previous church. She turned to me and said I want to call that Dr. from church PERIOD.  Doctor? Yes you know that Dr.  The Dr. that I used to work with on Saturdays, etc.. I said if you mean Steve he owns a bar and he is not a Dr.,  Mother. Oh well, maybe that is it.  You can be riding along and she will look out the window and say the trash can is on the car. She knows instantly that it might not be right and I have no idea, driving the car looking for a trash can on a car. 
My great aunt lived with my family when I was growing up. She had dementia the whole time I remember her being there.  She had to leave the family when she became uncontrollable. I remember she would physically beat my mother and father as they put her to bed. She had to be locked into the basement because she would go out and wander outside the house. Back then you didn't have deadbolts and chains on doors, although we did add a chain.  She would sit on the stairs leading to the outside door inside the kitchen and look at the people and cars. She would say--look at that doofunny... there goes another doofunny.  She would tell things that made no sense and wind a long tale around the nonsense.  This is where we are headed.  Mother won't be locked in her basement apartment, she lives in my house with me and my daughter. But she will have to be safe and in assisted living, with all the other doofunnies....

Today you are 89..

May 14, 2011 you are 89.  " I am not I am 90." You were born in 1922. " I was not you dont know when my birthday was." You were born on Sunday, Mother's Day, May 14, 1922. "Were you there, because I dont think you were?" We go throughout the day, I let people know it's her birthday and she tells them all she is 90, no not quite. " She doesn't know she wasn't there." Mom you think I wouldn't give you a party for your 90th birthday? "No, because I am not having a party am I?"  " I am 90." Mother you have an identification card in your wallet that states your birthdate. " I do not have anything like that, and if you told them the birthdate to put on it, then it is wrong." We get out the identification card, I explain also that my father was two years older and her sister was 3 years older and their birthdates.  " What makes you such a know it all?"
"Why do you think you know so much more than I do?"
People call on the phone and she continues to tell them she is 90.  At the end of the day, she finally says, "Well I guess I have to live another whole damn year to be 90."
Yes mother, another whole damn year!
Happy Birthday!

Life Goes On .... regardless of how hard I step on the brakes

"Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out. ~Anton Chekhov "
Looking for quotes this one fits the time period we are in now.  Mother continues to deteroirate. She has a hard time verbalizing now what she wants to say. She opens her mouth, stammers, stutters, slams her hands down on the table, the chair, her lap and says I can't say it. It is very hard to watch, as I am sure it is very hard for her as well. She will then say I will say it in a minute. We all go on our way and when she feels ready to speak, we come to her again and listen.  She doesn't comprehend her insurance papers, cannot write a check anymore, at times is not capable of dialing the phone.  She has become paranoid about her room and her things. She says that her granddaughter is going through her things, stealing money, fixes the tv purposely so it will not turn on and there by " punishing" her for the day leaving her without the tv.  Every night when she turns it off, she hits 2 buttons and there by "fixing" it herself.  I tell her things that she has said literally less than 3 minutes previously, and she says you are making that up. You are lying, You need your head examined.  You just want me to look bad so you make up these things and say I've said them.
The sheer disagreeability at times is just overwhelming. She has said my daughter has hit her, I know she and my daughter butt heads but my daughter would never hit her grandmother. Therefore I can't leave her alone while she is out of school and I am still working in case Mother would say it happened again. She tells people on the phone what she " thinks " we have done to her. She tells cashiers that " I can't do anything right," which causes them to look at me like I am Satan.
She doesn't look like she has dementia, unless you look deep in her eyes.  You can see that the light is fading and at times no one is home to recieve your call.