14 phone calls

I called Mom this week to check in. It had been a hard week last week. She called the police on the care giver. Mom thought she took her purse. Come to find out her purse was under a blanket in the family room where she had been watching tv. The very next night I had to go over and get her out of the house because she called my brother while he was on vacation in Maui threatening to call the police again.

For some reason this week Mom has had a lot of anxiety and like clock work her confusion and paranoia seems to happen when the sun goes down. Is she "sundowning again" or is it just part of the kidney diagnosis? No one can tell us.

I rushed over to her house and had to almost physically carry her out of her house this time. She had just had a great drive with the caregiver over to Half Moon Bay yet she doesn't know why "Ava" is even in her house..."Why is she here?" "She doesn't live here". "She is not my room mate — I want her out of here".

Mom was hungry. We got her her favorite meal; a cheeseburger and a milkshake. I thought that would get her mind off of Ava. It wasn't until I got her back to my house and she saw my boys that she started to calm down a bit and be less agitated.

I calmly reminded her that we were all leaving for Eugene Oregon bright and early in the morning to visit Ty (my daughter) at College. She processed that and asked if she could stay at our house with Idaho, our dog, while we were away. All of this got her mind off of things. She watched me pack and even offered to run errands for me. I love when she says stuff like that because it means she is coming back to her true state — a state of wanting to feel needed and reminiscent of her life 10 months ago.

We got up at 5 am and left for the long 9 hour drive to University of Oregon. I thought everything was behind us. Then the phone calls started to happen. 14 phone calls to be exact. I know there were 14 because I save most of them in case I never get to hear her voice again. They started around 9am when she got up. They went on and on for the next 5 hours. She wanted to know why there were people in her house? How long would they stay? Why couldn't I rush over to take her for a drive? I finally had to say "stop calling me!" She hung up. I felt awful. We did not speak again until I called her when we crossed back over the bay bridge on our way home.