Dementia and Poor Decision Making: A funny Story

One day when Mom was living in her independent living apartment, I received the following text from her while at work:

12:29pm

Mom: “Um, there is a rat in my kitchen”

Mom’s senior living facility provided pest control services so I immediately texted back and told her to call them. I don’t do rats and this was something I would not be able to help with.

Me: “Call general services (555) 555-5555”

10 minutes later…

Me: “Did you call?”

Mom:

–

I’m trying 

Me: “I will call now”

Mom: “Thanks”

Me: “Ok. She will call housekeeping to come put down traps.”

Mom: “This one is in a sticky thing. I am totally freaked out”

Me: “Well that’s good if it’s in a trap. They will be there soon”

Mom: “I have Never been so scared. It is small, but I am creeped out”

Almost four hours after the original text, I checked back in to make sure the situation had been handled. I did not expect the reply I got!

3:53pm

Me: “Have they come yet?”

Mom: “No.  I decided to take him outside and let him go!” 

Me: “What?!”

Mom: “He was just a tinny baby!”

Me: “You let him go where? And wasn’t he stuck to the paper?”

Mom: “In the back and he was easy to get off the paper!”

Me: “You walked down the stairs and outside with a sticky paper with a mouse stuck to it and then touched said mouse to pull it off the sticky paper?”

Mom: “Um, only ‘problem’ is I fell and my back hurts. And I didn’t touch the mouse!!!”

Me: “You fell where?”

Mom: “In back”

Me: “Outside?”

Mom: “Yes”

Me: “Do you have any scratches or scrapes?”

Mom: “I don’t think so”

Me: “You got up by yourself? Were you on the concrete?”

Mom: “A very nice couple helped me No. I think I was in the grass”

Me: “Ok. Well just rest”

Mom: “Ok.  I got a shower and I’m in my Chair and I will not ever go out there again”

Me: “Not by yourself”

During the time of this conversation, Mom rarely left her apartment because she was scared of not being able to find her way back. Her cognition and mobility had declined to the point where she spent most of the time in her unit with daily caregiver visits to keep everything running smoothly. She also had chronic back pain which greatly affected her walking tolerance. I constantly worried about her falling. 

You did WHAT?!?

I could not believe that she had decided to go down a flight a stairs, and while carrying a mouse! Add to that the fact that the door she had to exit required a key to get back in (which she never remembered to bring). We had basically told her not to go out the back exit unless she was with someone for fear of her getting locked outside. As you can see, Mom broke all the rules in her quest to save the “rat” turned “tinny baby.” 

Though this is a hilarious story, truly it is, this is a perfect example of poor decision making that did result in Mom falling and being trapped outside with no way of getting back inside or up from the ground. She could have easily injured herself, or been on the ground for a significant period of time. As it is, I’m not sure how long this entire mouse saving expedition lasted. Luckily a “nice couple” did find her and I later discovered that campus security was called and had assisted Mom up and back to her apartment. 

On their radar

The good thing about where she lived was that there was an onsite security team that was available to handle any emergencies. And they were just a call away. On the down side, all security responses required a report and were looked at daily by the campus administration. So though this story is an entertaining one, it put Mom on “a list.” And my sister and I definitely filed it away in the “is she safe to continue to live alone?” category. Because top to bottom, her series of decisions put her at risk in many ways. And all in the name of a mouse! 

I did go search the area behind her apartment that afternoon expecting to find a mouse stuck to a piece of sticky paper lying in the grass. But I saw nothing so maybe she was able to release him back into the wild. Though this could have had a different outcome, in the end I guess both Mom and the mouse came out of this one mostly unscathed.