Chapter Four

“How about some light down here!”

2002

We moved into our new house in early February. Lee, who had never cared much about furnishings and decorating, chose the perfect sectional sofa and end tables for the living room. I was thrilled with my kitchen, and spent hours arranging and rearranging foodstuffs in my pantry cabinet.

We began having friends over for dinner. I was planning an open house for spring, when the overflow crowd could enjoy the front and back decks and we could barbecue.

Two months later, around the first of April, Lee had an appointment with a surgeon to schedule surgery for an inguinal hernia. I filled out all the paperwork, making sure I wrote “Exelon” under medications Lee was taking. After that appointment, we went to the hospital to visit Ron, our neighbor and best friend, who had suffered a reaction following minor day surgery. Less than hour later after we left his hospital room, he died, suddenly and unexpectedly. His death was devastating to us and to our whole community.

In addition to the grief we felt at losing Ron, we had a month to think about Lee’s upcoming surgery. He told me he wasn’t worried about it, but I could see a far away look in his eyes. Too many of his friends and construction buddies were dying. In one month we had gone to three funerals. Our enjoyment of the new house was severely dampened.

Lee went into the hospital for his hernia surgery on the first of May. I had a discussion with the anesthesiologist about what drugs he would use that were safe for a patient with dementia. I made sure everyone concerned knew of Lee’s dementia.

All went well, and the surgeon decided to repair the other side as well during the same procedure. Lee was released from the hospital the next day and we stayed in a hotel room for the night to give Lee another night to recover before making the hundred mile drive home. He slept late while I shopped for groceries, then we headed home.

He was very happy to be back in his own bed. The next day, Friday, he was well enough to go downstairs to the dining room, where he proceeded to refill his weekly pill minder. I was in charge of the pain medication, but he was taking care of his other meds. I put him to bed after his nine p.m. dose of Percoset, a pain medication, and awoke him at midnight for another. At three o’clock, I was awakened by the sound of him talking. He appeared to be asleep, but continued talking for some time while I lay in bed and wondered what was happening. I felt him get out of bed.

Suddenly he was yelling, “Hey! How about some light down here, guys!” I turned on a light and saw him holding onto the sides of a framed print, apparently thinking it was a ladder and he was in the hold of a ship in the dark. I got him back into bed where he slept fitfully for a few hours, occasionally yelling out and crying. I was at a loss to understand what was happening. I counted his Percoset and began to suspect that he may have taken an extra dose.

I kept him at home Saturday and most of Sunday and didn’t give him any more Percoset until twelve hours had passed, though he was having almost continuous hallucinations. He was seeing people and animals, and hearing voices that weren’t there. He got worse. After consulting with on-call doctors and the local EMTs, I took him to the emergency room in the city.

He was completely irrational and insisted on fiddling with everything on the dashboard in the car. At one point, while descending a winding hill in the mountains, he opened his car door as if to step out. I became more and more rattled. At the hospital they decided to admit him for the night. We were all still thinking it was an overdose of Percoset. I waited until they got him settled at two a.m., and went to a local motel.

On my return to the hospital the next morning, I found that Lee had become uncontrollable shortly after I had left. He had not slept all night and they had moved him to a room where he could be monitored constantly by video camera. A Certified Nurses Assistant (CAN), a “sitter”, with him, whose job it was to keep him in bed and try to keep him calm.

He seemed a lot calmer, and I hope the worst was past. Shortly afterwards, when we were alone, Lee told me that “they” had guns hidden all over and “they” had to clean dog (feces) off his bed. I phoned his brother Jake, who lived in our community, and told him about Lee’s condition. He suggested I call Lee’s son, who lived a hundred miles north of the hospital. After some conversation, I relunctantly agreed to allow Jake to call Rick, but asked that he be careful what he said so as not to alarm anyone. I was still thinking this was an overdose of Percoset.

A few hours later, Rick arrived at the hospital, and I filled him in on Lee’s condition. “Jake told me I better get down here,” Rick said, “because dad’ had lost his mind.” I was stunned. I seethed at Jake’s insensitive words, and apologized to Rick. We both decided to call Lee’s two daughters in another state. They both arrived the next day.

We had no idea what was happening to Lee. We had no idea of this was a reaction to medications, or a severe downturn in his mental condition. I rented a room on the top floor of the hospital, which made it easier to for us to stay with Lee day and night. He was still quite agitated and restless, and didn’t sleep Monday night either, which was his third night without sleep.

Dr. Saunders came in late Monday night and prescribed an anti-psychotic drug called Zyprexa, as well as a sleeping pill. Nothing helped. I had gone home for the night to get clean clothes, and also to let Rick and the girls use the room upstairs, and thus did not have the opportunity to confer with her. She was reluctant to reveal much information to the grown children, preferring to speak only to me.

At home, I was a basket case. I had no experience with hospitals, had no idea what the hierarchy was, didn’t know what questions to ask, and had absolutely clue how to advocate for a patient. My few short hours at home were spent lying awake, crying, completely confused. In retrospect, it was a good thing I was so uninformed. Had I known what was coming, I’m not sure what I would have done.

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