...oneself is most definitely not a productive endeavor. I have spent a lot of time in the past week wondering if the decisions made related to the Auntie have been the best choices. Turning the recent behavioral crisis into an opportunity to worry and ponder about long-past decisions: an activity that surely qualifies a prime exercise in futility.
The Auntie has been, as long as I have known her, very self-sufficient. Independent, remarkably capable and profoundly determined. Which are great characteristics to have when your life-style is that of a single person, without the binding weight and obligation of close relationships to a partner or children.When attempting to explain her personality and current to status to other people I hold out both hands, as if creating a sort of scale/balancing between two extremes. One side/hand is the independence - completely able to manage her life, finances, personal health, and decisions about housing, transportation, lunch, when to get up and when to go to bed. The other hand/end of the equation: profoundly stubborn to the point of being mule-ish, unable to take advice, listen to other's opinions, respond appropriately to anyone in authority.
Some degree of her current situation is impacted by a recurrent, chronic urinary tract infection, that alters behavior and personality in a variety of ways. Creating symptoms in older people that can readily mimic dementia - ironic that she has a dementia diagnosis, and the accompanying progressive memory loss. She certainly does not need more of that!
Prescription medications meant to temper her problems, delay the memory loss, as well as meds. designed to help alleviate anxiety, stress and agitation have apparently had undesirable effects as she became unmanageable where she has been living for a year. The staff had apparently taken all the demanding abusive behavior they could tolerate. She was transported nearly a week ago to a Senior Evaluation Center in hopes of finding the right combination of medications that will make her easier to live with. Cooperative as well as hopefully content with herself.
Things have not gone well. I have called every day to inquire about her status and received distressing reports about her resistance. Reactions to being in a secured environment, where most anyone who felt imprisoned would be anxious and determined to be released. For a person who has been self-determined, always in control, I cannot begin to guess how difficult it would be to have lost all her independence, be forced to submit to the demands of other people. I know she is frustrated, angry, upset as well as confused when placed in a foreign environment, surrounded by strange faces of people who are unfamiliar.
I have wondered if I did the right thing by leaving her in south Georgia. I have doubted my decision to have her live so far away, a long frustrating three hour drive from her next of kin. Thinking it would be a kindness to have her geographically close to friends who were there and might come to visit. But at a considerable distance from me, who is ultimately responsible for her care and maintenance. Devoting far too much time in recent days to wondering about what the best choice would be - long after the decision was made. My mom would get a good laugh and tell me I was struggling with '20-20 hindsight'. Then tell me to quit, let it go, move on....
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