Worried about being eaten - pt 2 - a partial answer to the mystery

GothicGremlin

This has take us all some time to figure out. My original thread is here:

https://www.alzconnected.org/discussion.aspx?g=posts&t=2147563686

This last week Peggy's friend D talked to Peggy on the phone (D is part of my team of three). Somehow, over the course of the phone call D got Peggy to talk about our uncle without her going into panic mode. It turns out that Peggy is hallucinating seeing our uncle at lunchtime in the lunchroom. And for reasons we still don't know, only at that time. Peggy is horrified at seeing our uncle because she knows that he has passed away, and she shouldn't be seeing him walking around in the lunchroom.

Kind of rational irrationality? Irrational rationality?  Either way, her explanation makes sense.

Another thing I can think of is there's a new male caregiver in memory care. I'm going to ask the memory care director tomorrow what his shifts are. Maybe he's around at lunchtime and Peggy is seeing him, which makes her think of our uncle?

CanyonGal

Wow, that is bizarre, isn't it? My mom is at stage 5 and her communication is really difficult to interpret what she is saying or referring to. Last night she wanted to know where the men were, that they weren't there with her, and when I asked, what men, she said her 2 husbands. And she wanted their phone numbers. (They are both deceased.) 

I did resist saying they are not there because 3's a crowd....

(We have to have humor somedays.)

CatsWithHandsAreTrouble

Oh that's interesting! Good detective work. If you do find out the new guy's schedule, what are you going to do going forward? Have your sister go at a different time? Have him avoid the lunch area? Both sound a little daunting to me but I'm not that familiar with your sister nor her facility so perhaps it's not as challenging.

One time I was out at the store with mom and she went up to a woman, thinking it was her sister and tried talking to her (the woman didn't notice and mom was too quiet for anyone but me to hear). Looked nothing like her to me. Perhaps there's a feature the new caregiver has that reminds your sister of your uncle.

GothicGremlin

It's very, very weird (at least to me).  It took us a bit of time to figure it out.

CanyonGal, yeah, communication is hard.  Peggy also has primary progressive aphasia, on top of the word salad, so there are times I have no clue as to what she's trying to tell me.

Cats, I'll talk to the memory care director and find out when he works. Then I'll see if either he can be elsewhere during lunchtime, or if Peggy can eat in the living room. Whatever works best for them. I'm pretty sure once I explain what we've found out, they'll work with me.

The upcoming task that will be daunting is making sure my $%&*$ brother doesn't tell Peggy when our uncle's funeral will be.  It's not until March (he's already been cremated) so he'll have many opportunities to make wrong choices. sigh

CatsWithHandsAreTrouble

Ah so that seems fairly straightforward, I'm glad it doesn't seem as complicated as I was fearing. You got this!

And I hope your brother is mum about the funeral!