#6 With Someone Who Can't Stop Sceaming

My mother-in-law is 82 years old and suffering from mid -stage dementia. She can remember the past as far as you could throw it which is significant, but the present is unreachable. I sit near the doorway of her room at the memory care facility, where air flow can relieve me of the horrible smell of dirty bedclothes and  excrement. I sit with her as she lays on her side in bed. Making polite conversation which has the pattern of repetition of questions and answers I politely repeat. The same answers over and over and I don’t get bored as the smell keeps me sharply aware that the visit will , must be, kept short. I ask her if she has had any other visitors knowing that she will not remember. However, her friend from Queens, Joanne, has come to visit and she tells me so. I see a Valentine’s Day card perched on her night table.

“It looks like someone sent you a card. May I see it?”

As she begins to roll towards the table she suddenly cups her hand over her mouth and says, “I am going to throw up.”

I quickly leave the room to fetch the health-aide who takes her time as she makes her way into my mother-in-law’s room.

“Is she ok?” I ask.

“Yes. She is fine. She hasn’t thrown up yet.” She reaches under a cabinet and pulls out a few of those wee-wee pad-type things that old people sit on when we don’t want them to mess up the furniture. I wish we had a few of those on our sofa for the last few visits- Thanksgiving and Christmas when my poor mother-in-law lost control of her bowels and bladder on our sofa. It was a sad situation which caused her great shame and embarrassment as she cleaned herself in our bathroom, refusing the help we offered.

“Take me home. I am so humiliated. I don’t want to stay here.”

She promptly forgot .

A man with an industrial carpet cleaner comes up and starts working on her room. I watch the health aide motion instructions to him with her arms.

“…the rug next to the bed.”
I guess she threw up.

She comes out and says, “my son had this. It lasts 24 hours and nothing comes out. Not much comes out after a while.” She smiles in a bored and disgusted way. I can tell she doesn’t like puke, something I totally can relate to.

“I’m calling the nurse up here.”

Angie, the nurse, comes up and she tells me that my mother-in-law is fine. No fever and there has been a stomach virus going around. Something I know and feel IT is seeping into my bloodstream as I stand there breathing in the same air as my mother-in-law. I feel panicked and cannot wait to get the hell out of there.

“So, you’re the daughter?”

“Daughter-in-law”, I correct her feeling rather proud of myself for showing up on a disgusting day to check on my sick mother-in-law. Dutiful me.

“We know her son and the little girl.”

“That’s Greg, her son and my daughter.”

What a nice little girl.”

I add, “you know she is nicer now with the dementia. Nicer than she’s ever been.”

The nurse and health aide look amused.

“Nicer since the dementia?” They say in unison.

“You should have seen her before. She is warm and fuzzy now.”

“Really?” Disbelief. “She’s got some spirit to her. Can be quite sarcastic (laughter).”

I think, I know and can only imagine the racial slurs each of them has suffered.

“Oh, yeah. She’s a real pussy cat compared to her former self. Nicer than ever.”

I thank them for their help and I head toward the locked elevator.

“What is the code?”

“I’ll lead you out. Come with me.”