Last night was one of the roughest I've had since hb started taking a "sleep-aide capsule." He walked our hallowed halls all night, and I suspected he hadn't swallowed the capsule (Temazepam) I put in his mouth last night. This a.m. I found it in the kitchen sink!!!! I'd put the capsule in his mouth, handed him a glass of water and turned to other tasks. MISTAKE that won't happen again. Just because he has vascular dementia, doesn't mean he's not a deceitful sneak! Wonder what I'll do if he spits it out in my face tonight. Tonight I'm giving him 2 capsules since we have no a.m. appointments tomorrow. Doc had said I could give him 2, but that keeps him groggy in the a.m. so I don't usually do that; however, .....
zibby i too trusted that putting the pills in DH mouth a sip of water was what was required. wrong. i found numerous pills soggy wet under the cushions of the couch where he used to eat his breakfast. and he was sneaky enough to make sure i turned my back before he spit them out. as i became wiser i used applesauce to deliver them in a spoon and watched as he swallowed. its a shock the first time you discover they have pulled the wool over your eyes. :)
Check with a pharmacist and see if it's ok to open the capsule and mix the contents with a little pudding, applesauce, or ice cream. I noticed in the geripsych unit, they give EVERY med that way to EVERY patient (they all have dementia). Some pills can't be crushed, but I think if given in a soft food the patient just swallows them.
Yep, I have to watch my dh take his pills, too. Not sure why they resist taking their meds so much. However, my dh does "sneak" wine or beers or whatever he thinks I won't notice. I told this story somewhere else last week, but I caught dh in the act of nipping at the wine and he hid the bottle and came back in the house (we were in the garage). I later went out to see what he had been up to and found the uncorked bottle of wine in the storage area. I left it there and said nothing about it. He later couldn't remember doing that and still hasn't found that bottle of wine or the opener. lol God does have a sense of humor.
My LO was hiding pills for a cpl months before I found out what she was doing by that time it was too late she was so messed up they never did get her straigthed back out spent a cpl weeks in hospital trying to get her back on track but never succeeded an she ended up in ALF.They can be very sneaky an conniving beyond words,one person alone cannot survive for very long trying to care for spouse without damage to oneself.
ol don, you mean that batch of Namenda I sent you a long time ago got hidden? LOL We try so hard to help, don't we, but you're right, it sure does damage us too. I think DH has been in the ALF about the same time your wife has, over 10 months now. After all the effort I put into keeping him at home as long as possible I now feel as if I'm just a fifth wheel over there, sort of like I don't really count as a helper to the staff. And he sees me as this nice lady who comes to visit, but has no memory of our past life together. It's sort of like it never happened and only I remember the things that counted so much. And yes, the hurt is damaging.
Gord has to have all his medications crushed and in applesauce. It was so hard to believe that he just couldn't swallow a pill anymore. I have to watch when I give it to him as I found out one morning he had spit the applesauce out. As for conniving, he will do this swoon thing. It used to scare the hell out of me but I realized that it is an act. I knew this when I caught him one day when he was supposedly on the way down. I had no trouble holding him up and knew then it was an act. He is 6 foot 4 and I am 5 foot 2. He is only 167 pounds now but if that was a dead weight, I would not be able to hold him up. I had trouble holding my 70 pound mother when she was a dead weight. How can they manage to be sneaky when their poor brains are so damaged.
PrisR thanks again for the "pills" that was at the start I think of this long downhill slide,,today when I visited her she was upset that she missed a meeting with three groups of high school students (was a teacher for 30 years)then she told me her mother would be able to handle them for her,her mom passed away about 30 years ago,an the worst part of every visit is when I leave an she has to stay behind bawling her eyes out,makes for a long drive home,thanks again,hope your LO is doing better than mine
ol don--do you tell her you're leaving? Based on advice from someone here, I just tell DH I am going to the bathroom and never say goodbye or that I am going home.
ol don...yes, my DH is doing well at the ALF. Much resistance and aggression the first few weeks, then they switched from Seroquel to Risperidone and it calmed him down. The biggest help, tho, was the Merinol, beginning in January. Although memory is gone and he's not sure quite who I am, he's content to be living there and seems to like it I think the totally non-threatening atmosphere there is a big help. I give him a hug when I leave but he doesn't really hug me back. He says he's happy when I come to visit and then added that he's happy when I'm not there too. I'm less than three miles away, but it's a different world. His world is fine, mine is lonely.