My mom

My mom is not doing well. She had been in a nursing home / rehab center for several months after her heart attacks and coma. Now, she is finally out of the nursing home and back to her house and was 'happy' the first day I called her - but now she has had a lot of trouble understanding where she is, who she is, and more. My sister-in-law and stepfather are having a very hard time of it. I do not know if this is going to be temporary and she will snap back to what is 'normal' for her, or if she has entered another stage of her dementia that will stay for the rest of her life. Nobody knows... not even her. She has had long-term memory problems for more than ten years. She would often forget exactly what had happened recently, repeat things she had already said the day before etc.. but she always had control of the conversation she was in, and I could adjust to whatever state she was in easily and bring her back to 'now' gradually over the conversation. Yesterday was different - I could not even truly describe it, and those that overheard parts of the conversation knew just from my side that something was very wrong. She didn't really know who I was on the phone yesterday, asked several times for me to 'get Marie to call me - I miss her', and then said she thought I was someone else, and she is having paranoia about people trying to hurt her for 'bad things I might have done in the past' and asking for leniency from being killed. At the same time she is not doing much more than sitting and worrying and watching the TV... having to be encouraged to eat or drink. While I was on the phone with her she was very over the top on the 'praise the lord he is fixing me' while at the same time spacing off, talking about dead relatives as if they were alive - thankful for them being alive - saying 'hello who is this' after having just spoken to me for minutes and crying that she was trying to be good. I am printing off a batch of pictures to send to her so she has something to look at that is 'constant' - as voices don't seem to help her much right now with hardly any short-term memory at all.

Other than that, I'm not sure what I can do for her. I have responsibilities here and the trip in June took just about everything I could muster at the time, as well as most of my sick time and all of my vacation time. I'm still not over that - and don't really want to even imagine trying it again. Mark knows just what to say though - he texted me a few things that made me laugh even while I was sad yesterday... and helped me get through my work shift.