Writer in the Forest

Chapter 14

Mom’s first nursing home experience was an eye opener. I chose one close to home where the daughter of a friend worked. John and the kids helped me settle her in comfortably and with as much forced cheer as we could muster. When we left her she was smiling serenely. It was weird, but it was just what I needed and I went with it. A few hours later, a nurse called. “You’ll have to come get your mother,” she said. “She’s screaming about bugs under her skin”.

Mom was in a home that had pets to keep the residents company. When you’ve been without your Oxycontin, cats and dogs remind you of fleas, which translates to bugs under your skin. The screaming lasted fifteen hours. A psychologist was called in, and it turned out to be an acquaintance of mine. Please help her. I’m so afraid she will die like this, fearful and angry.

I was back and forth trying to work and get her settled in. I refused to take her home because, quite frankly, I didn’t think I could ever go through putting my mother in a nursing home again. My brother came and got his very first eyeful of Mom in withdrawal. He was shocked and hurt, completely undone by the wild behavior of his mother.

She screamed throughout the night and tried to call herself a taxi to escape, but no dice from the cab driver. She called me every few minutes and screamed at me for the horrible daughter I was. I could rot in hell. In the morning they finally set her in a wheelchair by the front door and told me to pick her up. She was kicked out in less than 24 hours. I took her home in despair. What could I do to help her now? I felt like I broke my Mom.

While I worried about what to do next, she stood on the porch screaming to the world what a hateful daughter I was. Then she went in the house and turned my photograph upside down, where it stayed for three weeks. “It’s ok Mom, it’s ok. I know you don’t feel good,” I whispered to her while she screamed.

“You’re addicted, Mom.” There. It was out. We would fight this together, and I prayed that God, some god, any god, would let her live long enough to find peace.

It was up and down for months. In her second nursing home, she was paranoid. They were watching her, spying on her. She wouldn’t eat the food. At one point she was so out of her head she threatened to run away and I would never find her, and I visualized what a victim an elderly woman was on the streets. I spent two days with her in the ER, trying to get her into the psych ward at the hospital. The young freckled social worker knew Mom needed to go to Psych for the help she needed and to get into a rehab program, but she didn’t meet the criteria. It was unfortunate for Mom’s well being that she wasn’t in danger of harming herself or others. After two days I went home and Mom went back to the nursing home.

Friends said it was doing me in; it was time to give up. But I knew something they didn’t know. My Mom was still in there. I see her every now and then. And I will never, ever give up on my Mom.