Remember my inspiration last month? The one about getting him through the move by telling him that he was going to live near me with some people who work for me, and that there'd be work for him, too? File it under "it seemed a good idea at the time."
A call yesterday afternoon from P. Was I planning to come up and visit? No, I said, I'd probably come by Wednesday. Oh, good, she said, that's just as well, because he hasn't been having a good day. What's going on? I asked. Well, she said, he got enraged at the other residents. He's been screaming and cursing at them for hours because they're all sitting around and none of them is doing any work.
She told me she'd tried to redirect him by telling him that it was Sunday, and she'd given them all the day off. No luck - he was furious. She finally gave up and called psych and got permission to have him put back on Neurontin. He quieted down after that. I hadn't been aware that they'd taken him off the Neurontin. Very likely that was the cause of the outburst, chemically speaking, at least.
She said the saving grace was that the other residents were completely oblivious, so no one else got upset.
I told her I'd try to think about other things we could tell him... but that I thought that at the end of the day, the solution, if any, was more likely to come from her and her crew than from me. She agreed and told me not to worry about it . She suggested I call on Wednesday before I go up there, to see what state he's in.
I'm left with this image of him trying to run his staff - all of whom happen to be demented. First thought: it's not totally unlike normal business life - edgier, but only slightly. Worth noting also that it keeps to a pattern. He tries to hold onto the things that were once useful - in this case executive function (in several senses - he once had it and he once was one). His life feels out of control and he's trying to reassert control by acting in his old capacity (as an editorial director), notwithstanding the fact that he can't even form words anymore. It must be an awful experience. The rage has something to do stress. There's a level where he must know that he's essentially been kidnapped and incarcerated. But it also has to do with the amount of brain damage. Governance comes off and the impulses break free. They may not even be meaningful. Overall it gets harder to connect with him.
My reaction is weirdly detached, as you can probably tell. Something like this would once have been a crisis. It probably still is, but not for me. An emergency but I don't have to respond to it. Instead I get to sit back and let the relationship go. The connections are failing and at the same time the professionals are taking over the hard work and the difficult decisions. I get to move backwards a little, out of the suction.
This afternoon they were supposed to have taken him to see the urologist. I haven't heard anything from them, and no news is clearly good news - maybe he wasn't distressed. It could be that I'll hear something from them tomorrow, or possibly not 'til Wednesday, when I find out whether it's safe to visit. Am still not used to the rhythm. But I'll have time to practice and eventually I'll get it right.
Comments