A quarter of an hour ago I was lying in bed, contemplating my dreams, when the doorbell rung. I assumed it was Mum, who having got to the shops had become flustered, & forgotten that her key was round her neck, or how to open the front door.
Instead it was a good friend of hers, who lives locally & often calls by - I made them some coffee and have left them alone to chat, while I came into the bedroom to start this blog.
Last week the doctor prescribed Mum an anti-depressant, Mirtazapine. We weren't warned about the side-effects, and quickly withdrew the treatment when Mum reported seeing smoke coming out of a doorstop, and 'red spots that are definitely there' [she gestured to the corner of the room]. She also heard ringing music/sounds, and a voice calling her in the night.
There was a fragility of mood, a 'come-down', on the drug's withdrawal (she only took one 15mg pill, the lowest dose commonly prescribed) and some restlessness and agitation during its active period (it has a half-life of 20-40 hours, meaning its effect halves every 20-40 hours).
On the flip-side there appeared to be a clear improvement in her enjoyment of social engagement and in her memory, though the general variability in her recall makes this less easy to judge than the black-and-white matter of the visual and auditory hallucinations (London-sister's partner said it was documented that visual and auditory distortions were a common side-effect, but not hallucinations. There was no music, no smoke, no spots - these may be quite abstract things, but they are things, and they were not there at all. When one when sees a thing that is not there at all? That is an hallucination in my book. 'Distortion' sounds like a euphemism to me.)
Last night, after consulting with Local-sister, who had spoken to the doctor, I resumed the treatment - but administering a reduced dosage of 7.5mg - I need to keep an eye on her.
I can hear Mum's friend leaving now.
10:15am
It is perhaps of note that my mother rarely engages in any task that is not daily routine. She wants to do the laundry every day (is this to keep it in this boundary?) even if there are only a couple of dirty towels in the machine. While the lawn & garden gets attention outside of this loop - based on observation of need (we do spend a long time looking at it) - the house rarely does, at least not without prompting. However, this morning she shook out the rugs & mopped the kitchen floor - first thing after her friend left.
She also took down one of the blinds in the kitchen because it rattled. Much to her delight I located a rogue strip of plastic, only 2mm long, which I chopped off with nail scissors and this fixed it. Apparently the rattling blind had been annoying her for a long time, & I had succeeded where myriad others had failed. What this probably means in reality? Perhaps she got Local-sister or London-sister to look at it once - but she made me feel like I'd pulled the Sword from the Stone, or found the Princess who lost her glass slipper.
When we made her shopping list & looked through the food in the fridge she became extremely agitated that I wanted to throw away the green, week-out-of-date pork-chops, & eat the fresh pink ones. She hates to waste things, for this I call her 'the patron saint of saving string'. She keeps & cares for useless objects, pilfered from bins or found in the street, & she will always eat the bacon, no matter how long ago it was labelled as 'best-before'. I am not that different, not that different at all. I win the argument over the green meat and Mum announces, brightly, the irritation gone from her voice -
"Well, the difference between you and me is that I want to die". Its always a tough call - what to say to when one's Mother says she wants to die.
"Maybe I want to die too, perhaps I just don't want to get violently sick", I venture. On previous occassions that she expressed a deathwish she was crying - I hugged her, said 'I love you', and everything was alright - this wasn't possible or appropriate when she was smiling and animated. She responded, with a characteristic cheekiness of tone -
"You mean you don't want to die slowly? You want it to be quick? I'll creep up behind you and hit you on the head with a hammer!"
"Maybe I'm working towards a time in the future when I want to live."
There was no concomittant upset, we carried on merrily preparing the shopping list together. I asked her if she wanted me to come, and she said no, she liked to do it alone - she wasn't just going shopping, she wanted to speak to all the people on the way. I felt, as she explained this to me, that she knew full well -today at least - that there would come a day, not too far off, when she was not capable of even this vestige of independence. I checked she had money, a key, her list, her bag, & she strode out bravely into a world of nameless things, at once familiar and strange.
11:15am
Mum returned, flustered, I was at the computer typing this blog. She was rambling - something along the lines of she hadn't any money and couldn't get 'the things on the paper'. She was having trouble finding the words now, they were missing, misplaced, a stark contrast to the casual erudition with which she had earlier expressed the wish to die.
The things on the list were MILK and SALAD CREAM.
"There's something in your bag, it looks heavy - ah, milk and creme freche. Milk is important." If you're trying some 'SPECL' techniques, but can't lie for toffee - just accentuate the positive.
You've got to accentuate the positive
To eliminate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between
You've got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium's
Liable to walk upon the scene Johnny Mercer
She left the room. I followed a minute later - there was no milk and no Mum. I went back into my room and sent an email. Fifteen minutes later I came out, to find Mum cooking eggs and bacon (not the fresh pork chops on the counter). I leave her to it, shes doing well. I come back in time to nuke some beans and put some toast on.
She chooses the biggest bit of everything and has it on the only big plate, mine is stacked like something from a cartoon.
Mum's really hungry. I cook us both a third egg, a third slice of bacon and I make some fried bread. She wants more beans too, but says its too much bother. I tell her I can do a little pot in one minute in the new microwave - she has extra beans too - I am stuffed and she has already out-eaten me.
Despite her constant protestations that she doesn't eat much - she eats like a horse. But today she is eating for a pregnant elephant. I feel too bloated for dessert, Mum has a sliced apple.
Looking at lists of side-effects it is probable that the ravenous appetite, the strange conversation and the non-routine housework are all behaviours reflecting the change in chemical balance in her brain from the anti-depressant, but she has not yet reported anything black and white that can without doubt be attributed to the drug - which is good news, the apparition of smoke coming from the doorstop was unsettling for her. The music and red-spots weren't disorienting - she doesn't remember them.
I forget
what baffled me
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