A Caregiver in the Middle

It's 10:00 a.m. and the phone rings. It's Romeo's nurse.

"Have you talked to Romeo today yet?"

"No, why?"

"Let me tell you what happened last night."

Dear lord, now what, I think. The story unfolds. From his bed, Romeo was banging on the walls, as usual, and yelled and screamed until someone came to help him. Of course he mistakenly thought his call light had been on for 30 minutes and that no one had answered it. When someone came, he let loose with his now usual round of name-calling and anger and frustration. And it took some time to calm him down, again like usual.

He insisted that he had been left in the shower and couldn't get anyone's attention to help him get out. He claimed he was abandoned in the shower -- all the time while he was actually tucked into his own bed.

Not really believing it, I asked Romeo's nurse, "Someone was giving him a shower at 3:00 a.m.?"

"Not that I know of," she said. "We don't do that in the middle of the night. But I'm going to investigate it just to be sure. If someone did leave him in the shower, they're in big trouble. I just wanted to let you know in case he tells you about this."

Fair enough. I cherish open, two-way communication.

A few minutes later, the phone rings. It's Romeo. He had told his nurse that he wanted to speak with me, so she dialed my number for him. The purpose of Romeo's call was to tell me about his shower ordeal the night before. It was the same story his nurse had told me minutes ago. I agreed with Romeo that yes, it was horrible that he was abandoned in the shower, that I would talk with his nurse about it.

Then Romeo complained again about how no one answers his call button during the night. For all the times Romeo has voiced the unanswered call button complaint to me, he has never once told me why he summoned help.

"Romeo, when you press your call button during the night, what do you need? What do you need help with?"

"Pain," he says.

"Pain? What kind of pain, where?"

"In my ankles."

This is the fist I'd heard from him of pain during the night.

"How bad was the pain and how long does it last?"

"Pretty bad. It goes on for hours."

"Does this happen every night, pain in your ankles?"

"Yes," he says.

"Okay. When we're through talking, I'm going to call your nurse and see if she thinks it would be a good idea if they gave you something for the pain before you go to bed. That way it won't wake you up in the night."

"Oh, that would be good," he replies with a smile in his voice.

We hang up, and I call back to speak with Romeo's nurse. I tell her the latest about the ankle pain. It's news to her as well. She agrees to give him ibuprofen at bedtime.

I ask, "Do you think that the ankle pain is due to Romeo's dementia, or might there be an actual physical reason for it?"

She refers it to Romeo's doctor, who will check it out.

It seems to take the two of us to squeeze a story out of Romeo, to find out what's bothering him. She has a fact or two, and I glean an additional clue or two from him. Then we talk and figure out the best thing to do for Romeo in that case.

As far as Romeo being abandoned in the shower . . . well, of course it did not happen. But what I told Romeo was very different from the truth. I told him I was as frustrated and angry as he is that this happened. I told him I was at a loss as to what to do about it. And then I "thought" of a solution. I offered to take the matter up with one of my spiritual advisers, and Romeo thought this was a splendid idea. I agreed to do it, hoping all along that Romeo would forget about it, that it would drop off of his radar, never to be mentioned again. So far, so good.