A call from mom

When the phone rang, I saw from the caller ID that it was my mother - calling from her Assisted Living facility in another city. I'm usually hesitant to answer calls from my mom... her dementia being sufficiently progressed to the point where conversations are nonsensical, but not in an amusing way.

Still, I thought that she might be calling to wish me a happy birthday, so I answered.

I was wrong.

After ranting for nearly twenty minutes about her care (or lack of it) and a host of imaginary slights, she finally paused long enough for me to say "Hi", and "I thought you were calling to wish me a happy birthday."

She followed with a half-hearted "Happy birthday" before continuing with her rant.

The sad part of this story is that she's at a stage where she would respond really well to a particular medication. However, this medication takes the form of a distinctive capsule - and the one thing my mother still recognizes are her usual medications. Try to give her any pill she doesn't recognize, and she refuses to take it. She doesn't trust doctors (probably because of the medical foul-ups that ultimately contributed to the premature death of my father). While I share her disdain for certain doctors and hospitals, I wish she would allow us to make her life more enjoyable and her mental health more stable.