Like A Switch Was Flipped

Our morning wasn't too bad, my mom was up at 5am, fully dressed and panicking.  She was late, a tone that rang the day in a little earlier than I had wanted on a Saturday morning.

I had her listen to music.  She was happy.  I posted about it earlier.

My mom was sitting on the patio waiting for me.  I had to give her time with her friends.

She is agreeable if I give her a choice and the decision is her idea.  It's very tiring to remember this fact, if you do it wrong and peeve her off, you may as well pack your bags and go home.

I walked up to her and she had tears in her eyes.  She was staring at my Blessed Virgin Mary statue, the plastic white one that my Aunt Jay gave me years ago when I had bought my first house.  It's been painted a few times and needs a fresh coat of paint to bring her alive.  However, even without paint, the BVM was talking to my mom.

"Ma, are you OK?  Are you ready to go to the store with me?  I do need your help."  I asked her in a cheery tone of voice.

"Ohhhhh, it's Yoouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu."  She said in a sweet voice, gazing up at me as though she just saw a celestial being.

"The Blessed Mother, she told me that you are an angel, a real angel.  That you are dead, that you are not really alive.  You are so beautiful. "  My mom said to me.  Off we went to Whole Foods.

My mom believed that I was one of her hallucinations, she didn't believe that I was real or alive.  She smiled at me the entire drive.  It was great.  I expected the day to turn and become great.

The store had music playing, the aisle we were in, the music seemed louder than any other aisle; my mom, she began to move her body to the music.  It began slowly at the beginning of the aisle, raising her shoulder like they do at the ADH program.  She moved one to the beat, then the other.

She was bouncy in her step as she slowly pushed the cart... all to the music.  She was smiling.  She was having fun.

By the time we got to the end, my mother was in a full waving her arms and laughing her head off dance.  I pulled out my camera and was able to get a short 30 second (if that) video of her at the end of her routine.

It was so much fun, we laughed very hard, a deep laugh... it felt awesome to laugh until my belly hurt... then laugh a little more.

We went through the check out, we chatted with the cashier.  She knows us, she knows me as the Fenugreek and Diabetes Lady.  She knows that we used it to reverse my mom's diabetes.  She is Muslim... a sweet woman who loves seeing my mother.  My mom likes her too.

We got home and I made my mom a hot lunch.  A chicken breast with a little bit of mashed blue potatoes.  She enjoyed her lunch.  She was pleasant.

My mom insisted on going out on the deck.  I worry about the heat and even more about the sun.  I notice that any time she sits in the sun she becomes catatonic or worse,  nasty.   Today, she became nasty; scary nasty.  She was angry with me.  She believed that I was not Sue because the Blessed Virgin Mary told her that I was an angel, that I am dead.

I had my mom sit outside with me in the shade as I tended my garden.  She gave me the mean look, a look that told me she was trying to find a way to "escape" from me.  She wouldn't even take the homeopathic remedy that Dr. Barton prescribed for just this sort of crazy scene.  She thought I was trying to poison her, because the real Sue, in her mind is dead and now an angel.  How do I talk her off this ledge, she hates me?  She doesn't know that I am Sue!

I was panicked a little, I asked her what she wanted and she said, 'I want to talk to Brian."  I walked her to the gate and showed her where Brian was in the yard.  She walked over and tried to ask him who I am.  She told him that I am not Sue.  I handed him the homeopathic remedy, he knew what to do from there.

Brian went along with whatever hallucination she had going on.  She walked him into the garage, to ask someone if it was the right medicine or if I was trying to kill her.  She wanted to talk to Dr. Barton.  He is on vacation this week, there is no way we could reach him.

Brian didn't know what to do either.  This is the worst my mom has ever been, something turned her against me, she hated me, she thought I was an impostor.  I thought quick and wondered if I cried, if I got myself to sob (which wasn't hard), maybe she'd realize it is me.

"Stop!  She demanded.  You are wearing me down!"  My tears got my mom to walk over to me and take my hand.  She believed it was me, my tears were the proof she needed.

I had her sit outside under the shade of the trees.  The breeze was pleasant.  The homeopathic remedy didn't work, it was the wrong one.  The thing with homeopathy, if it's the wrong remedy it won't do anything.

I cleaned the pool filter and my mom watched me.  When I was finished, I sat on the bench next to her, under the tree.  That's when she started to freak me out with what she began to say.

"You are going to die.  They are going to kill you with a butcher knife."  She laughed a sinister laugh, a laugh that scared the crap out of me.  My mother just told me that she wants me dead.

She continued, "You will die before me.  You will be killed with a knife."

What do I do at this point but start yelling to my husband on the other side of the yard, "BRIAN!  I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO HERE?"  He didn't hear me.  I sat and prayed.  I began to talk to the Blessed Virgin Mary in my mind.  I closed my eyes as my mom told me horrible things that made my heart sick.

She walked away from me and sat on the patio.  I had a feeling she was going to make a run for it.  Brian suggested I change my cloths.  It's worked in the past where if I change my cloths, she thinks I'm the good Sue, what did I have to lose?

While I was trying to find big baggy cloths, cloths that I wore when I was heavier, my mom took off out the back gate.  I didn't put the latch on tight.  Brian hopped in the car and went out to entice her to come home with him.  She wouldn't.  He suggested to her, "Well, if you are tired you can always turn around and go back the way you came."  My mom told Brian that she was going for a walk

He returned without my mom.  By now I had big cloths on so we got in my truck, the two of us and went out to find my mom.

My mom saw me and immediately she recognized me as the Angel Sue.  She thanked us for the ride home and then walked to her room where she sat in the chair and fell fast asleep.

I do hope she wakes up in a good state of mind.  Today was a rough one; the roughest day we've ever had with her.  It was like a switch was flipped.  I wonder if the potato caused her blood sugar to elevate too high. I have noticed that when her blood sugar is high, her blood pressure goes up and then if we add in the sun (like we did today) she becomes schizophrenic-like.  The laughing was like the laugh you'd hear in a horror movie.

Today's conclusion:  I am hiding my knives.