Any minute now

I took mom to Kaiser emergency again in Saturday. After two calls with the advice nurse, I was instructed to just go to ER for a respite. They kept her overnight so I could go home and sleep. I got about seven hours that night. She was prescribed a sleep aid that normally isn't recommended for dementia patients, but it works without compromising her coordination. I'm adjusting the dementia medicine back down to a half dose tonight because she is sleeping a lot, and I'm concerned that she could be too drugged up. I know that she needs a few days of long sleeping hours to make up for the past week of terrible insomnia, but I don't know how strong the effects of the meds are (together or separately) because both are new.

Before she was moved to an observation room on Saturday night, I spoke with the social worker on duty. We stepped out of my mom's room and into a semi-private space a few steps down the hallway. My mom yelled and pitched a fit for the entire time I was out of the room. The tantrum continued even after I returned. She said that she wanted me to help her scream at the ER staff. I refused. The nurses were very helpful and polite. One of them brought me a sandwich and juice after mom's dissatisfaction with the two meals she was given. Mom watched me eat the sandwich with a strange look on her face. She asked me if it was good, and I told her that it was basic. It was basic, but I was tired and hungry. She asked, "You're just going to eat whatever they give you?"

   "Yes."

  "Why?"

   "Because it's what they have. This is not a restaurant."

She looked at her food again (the second meal they brought her), ate a few more bites and quieted down. She said she still didn't like it, but she didn't scream anymore after that... at least not while I was there.

The next morning, I spoke to the new nurse on duty (barely an hour into her shift) twice within fifteen minutes. I could hear mom in the background insisting that I immediately appear. Although I skipped making breakfast and coffee, opting to go straight to the hospital instead, it took me an hour. An hour is an eternity to her if she's waiting. She thinks thirty seconds is ten minutes. She has a lot of difficulty with gauging time and reading clocks.

Her dementia is overwhelming. It's a 24 hour crap shoot. I never know when she's going to be herself, a vacant husk or somewhere in between. We've been burning through the disposable underwear at an alarming rate. I have to get her into a facility before she becomes completely incontinent. I don't know how much time I have left. It's all happening so fast! I pray that getting enough rest will help mom recover some of the independence she had just a couple of months ago. I need to be able to get out of the house to make money. She can't get any services for free, we have nothing left after paying bills from her fixed income, and a few bills go unpaid 2-3 months at a time.

I'm applying for adult day care and requested to be reactivated as a DoorDash driver. I signed up for Instacart too. The day care hours aren't long enough for me to drive Lyft, especially since I need to drive a rental. I'm not sure what else I can do with a few hours every other weekday, but I hope I come up with something good soon.