The Fall and What Happened After, or Dementia Unleashed

Funny how one fall, one slip on the bathroom floor can change a life, two lives. After it happened nine days ago, life downshifted drastically in short yet powerful spurts. His physical fall was matched by a mental fall, and he lost ground quickly. Within one day, my husband, Romeo, went from having dementia to having DEMENTIA. He lost the ability to feed himself, and his sweet disposition morphed into one of psychotic anxiety and restlessness.

In the hospital now, he fusses with his blankets, tears off his hospital gown, picks at his clothes. He is ripe with innocent hallucinations. He grasps at the air, peels bananas that aren’t there, asks me to pull the needles out of his legs. I go along with it all, especially making sure he knows that I removed all the needles. He tells me that one of our favorite tea shops is closing (not that I know of). I tell him we can find another, and he is satisfied and falls asleep smiling. At last he is quiet and content and I can take a break from being with him in his dementia.

A short time later, he wakes up, and anxiousness kicks in. He is flailing about like a baby, arms and hands and head moving in short, jerky motions, hands grabbing at my hair and necklace. He squeezes my hands so hard (how can he have such physical strength?) that I must remove my rings to head off an injury. He reaches for me, misses, unintentionally grabs and bumps and punches me. He has a tight hold on my right thumb, and it HURTS! I ask him gently to let go of my thumb. He squeezes it tighter, not understanding. Still coaxing him to release my thumb, I try to pull it out of his hand. This only makes him squeeze harder. Finally, I manage to pull my thumb out of his hand – and he jerks and grasps the bed, as if he were falling and my nearly broken thumb was his only lifeline. I speak softly in his ear and hold him tenderly, oblivious to the swollen thumb and to the bruises forming on my arms.

The muscle spasms in Romeo’s legs begin at 6:00pm, slowly at first. By 6:30, they are becoming more frequent, more pronounced, more uncomfortable for him. Finally, an order comes through for the pharmacy and we anticipate relief. It doesn’t come. We ask the nurse to page Romeo’s doctor. No reply. Page again. The spasms come every 30-50 seconds, and they are so strong and painful that Romeo’s back arches during each attack. Still no doctor. The nurse says that the doctor is busy in the emergency room with some admissions. I get a brilliant idea and share it with the nurse. I tell her that we’ll take Romeo to the emergency room so he can see a doctor. Shortly after that, the doctor showed up.

Two and a half hours after the start of Romeo’s muscle spasm ordeal, the doctor gave him a small dose of morphine. Thankfully, it relaxed his muscles and he went into a peaceful sleep. On the other hand, I – I who had been crying all day – cried some more. I cried all night and well into the next morning. That day, Romeo and I crawled through the deepest, darkest jungle without a map or chart. We encountered monsters and demons. But still we crawled. It may be a very long time before we can stand up again. Yet, we crawl.