I know for many people with bipolar disorder, "rock bottom" is far, far below where I am. In fact, I've even been below where I am now. It's our household that has hit bottom.
Two weeks ago I only made it to work one day, some days because Mom could not be left alone and some because of my own exhaustion. Mom has established a pattern of waking me up between five and six every morning ("Get up! I NEED you!"), before my night meds have worn off, and hours before my body is ready to get up.
I do best on ten hours' sleep. My pattern was to turn out the light at 11:30 and get up at 9:30. I've changed that, but since I can't go to bed before she does, I absolutely can't make up the missing four hours during the night.
By the end of that week I knew I was no longer able to give Mom the attention she needs. My patience was gone. My strength was gone. I'd discovered, too, that because Mom hasn't been able to bathe (she can't get out of a tub, and refuses to take showers), her skin was so dry and itchy that she was scratching until it bled. She was also getting weaker because of her refusal even to get out of her chair and walk around.
I knew I had to get someone to stay with us full time, and I dreaded it. Mom hated having a stranger in the house, and really, I did, too, even though I got along fine with the caregivers we have had. Then, serendipity stepped in.
Nohemi (pronounced "no Amy"), who has done our once-a-week housecleaning for at least 15 years while going to school part-time to become a teacher, decided to take some time off from her schooling, and she needed a job. She has been a companion to an elderly person before. We know her so well she's like part of the family. She agreed to come and live with us five or six days a week. She would help Mom take showers, take her out to get groceries (good exercise walking around the huge grocery store), and be patient with Mom when I no longer can.
Oddly, though, Mom's anxiety level skyrocketed from the first day Nohemi was with us. Not because Nohemi bothers her - far from it. She has latched onto Nohemi to the level of "Don't leave me alone!" If Nohemi goes to the bathroom while I am at work, Mom panics and goes to look for her.
To top everything off, my psychiatrist, who also treats Mom for her sleep disorder and depression, suddenly became so ill he was forced to stop working.
I spoke with a psychologist who recommended we get an MRI of Mom's brain. We did this last week, and although they did not find signs of Alzheimer's or any other deteriorating disease, they did find a narrowed or blocked artery in her neck.
Our primary care doctor then ordered an MRA - which stands for magnetic resonance angiography - and although this was done several days ago, I still haven't gotten results.
Meanwhile, Mom's mental condition has deteriorated rapidly over the last month. One night it took more than an hour to get her to go to bed because of her anxiety about taking her pills. "I'm your mother," she says, as if just discovering that fact.
This morning (at 6:00) when she was very loud in her bedroom, I shushed her and she flared, "YOU shut up!" I explained that Nohemi was still sleeping and she said, "Who's Nohemi?" Later on she began to say, "If we have no Amys, we'll have to get one." Shortly after that, thank goodness, she began to ask where Nohemi was.
We're slowly settling into a routine. Nohemi gets to put her to bed so I can go to bed as early as possible. Mom wakes me up before dawn, and I stay up with her until Nohemi awakens; then I go back to bed. I don't sleep well at any time - I have long, wild, tense, elaborate dreams.
I just discovered that I'm almost two weeks late in paying some bills. I'm grinding my teeth so much I had to get a day guard that allows me to talk. I'm smoking more than twice as much as I used to. I'm so far behind at work that I despair of ever catching up.
In the next eight days, I have to prepare my taxes for the accountant, get my car fixed, take Mom's car for its emissions test, take Mom to get her driver's license renewed (and I have no idea whether she can pass the tests), go to work as often as possible ... and ALL I want to do is sleep.
My body has its ways of letting me know when I'm not just tired, but exhausted. It is doing that often these days, so I know the situation has serious implications for my health.
Certainly it's no help that for weeks I've been living on coffee, candy and Cheez-Its all day, and my only real meal is dinner. I can never think of anything I want to eat, so I wait till I'm starving and then grab the easiest item. On the day giant and double candy bars were on sale at the drugstore, three for $3.00, I bought about two dozen of them and almost always eat the whole thing in a few minutes.
And without any planning, I've ordered at least a hundred plants for the spring gardening season.
Yes, I'm out of my mind.
