Medical solutions seem to offer no help, but instead worsen symptoms.  It may be too early to tell.  I hope so.  It seems as if the increase in the medication of choice for controlling the rampant hallucinations, made them worse for two days and nights.  Now it appears that the concerning side effect of lowering blood pressure resulting in the inability to stay conscious has surfaced with a vengeance.

Last night Mary Ann for the second night in a row, slept through the night.  On the one hand, I am very grateful.  She got rest raising the possibility of becoming more lucid with less intensity in the hallucinations.  I have been able to sleep.  Last night I got almost ten hours of sleep.

Mary Ann slept from around 6pm last evening to 10am this morning without moving a muscle or using the commode even once.  The time she has been up, she has not been hallucinating to any substantial degree, at least it has appeared that way.

So what is the problem?  I fed her breakfast and pills.  She was up for while, quite subdued, but awake.  She got hungry again and wanted to eat something.  I got her a sandwich.  At the second bite, she pretty much fainted just sitting in her chair.  I could get no response.  I tried to get her from the chair at the table into her transfer chair with the wheels so that I could get her to the bed.  She was completely dead weight.  I tried to do it, but she slid to the floor.

After switching the chair into a different position and trying to slide her body into a different position, I noticed a little dyskinetic movement, the movement that tells me that her Sinamet is kicking in.  I pulled her up the way I usually do, hoping her auto pilot would kick in.  That and the Sinamet provided enough help from her to get her into the chair.  She just hung in it, limp as a rag.  I managed to get her into bed, where she stayed for a couple of hours.  That happened just at the time we were to leave for an eye appointment to see about new glasses.  I phoned to apologize and tell them that she would not be coming.  It has apprears to me that there is little chance she could function well enough to answer all the “which is clearer” questions.  I did not reschedule.

She finally began stirring enough to allow me to get her to sit up and try again to eat something.  While we were doing that some Members of the congregation phoned, Gen and Dwight, to bring over a little something from the a group of older adults in the congregation.

When they arrived, they greeted Mary Ann and she responded.  She had chosen to stop eating after about half of the sandwich was eaten.  She continued with some more chips and Pepsi.  Gen and Dwight and I talked for a while as Mary Ann was sitting at the table.  After a time Mary Ann fainted again.  I went over and stood behind her and held her up in the chair as we finished our conversation.

After they left, I took Mary Ann’s blood pressure.  It was 95/65.  She was pretty much completely out.  I managed to get her into the transfer chair.  Again, she was dead weight.  with the same difficulty, i got her into the bed.  I have not been able to get her up since.  That was more than four hours ago.

If the increase in Seroquel does not allow her to stay conscious, it is not an acceptable solution to the problem of uncontrolled hallucinations/delusions/dreams mixed with reality.

At the moment, all I can do is watch and wait to see what tonight and tomorrow bring.  Depending on what happens, I will decide whether to phone the Neurologist tomorrow or Monday to talk about whether or not to continue the increased dosage of Seroquel.  It is tough to see options dissipate as we seek to make the best of this combination of problems.

…It is now much later in the evening.  At one point Mary Ann got up just long enough to change into her bed clothes.  She wanted to get right back into bed.  This time she did not fall back asleep.  After a bit, she pushed the doorbell button on the bed stand to call me.  When I came in, she said she had been yelling for me.  Since I was watching her carerfully on the monitor and the door to the bedroom was open, I knew there had been no yelling.  She said she wanted me to get her back into bed.  She was lying in bed when she said it.  I asked her where she thought she was at the moment.  She said “on the toilet stool.”  She had thought I had left her there and forgotten about her. I pointed out that she was in bed.

I asked her if she wanted something to eat since she had not had supper.  She agreed that she did.  I had made some chicken salad from a packet and ingredients given to us by Trudy and Coleman who visited last Sunday.  Mary Ann ate the half sandwich and chips followed by a bowl of ice cream.  She fed herself the sandwich and chips.

I am suspecting that the dementia will be returning tonight.  Oddly, it seems that when she is most verbal, able to walk and take care of herself (eat on her own), the dementia is beginning to fire up. She is back in bed now, but has called me two or three times for one thing or another.  She is no longer fainting.

Based on prior experience, it just seems as if she will be up much of the night tonight.  We will see.

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