"keep holding on, 'cause you know we'll make it through. Just stay strong."

The Glee cover of this song is one of the only things that gets me through the day.

i've shut out the events of the last 2 weeks for, well, 2 weeks. and i am pretty much the master at disguising emotion with everyone around me. dare i say i was starting to feel a lot better about everything until last night when my friends decided to pile their troubles on me, and we got yet another of the phonecalls. and the longer i keep this locked up, the worse i am going to feel. it's time to start talking about it.

the phonecalls come between 7 and 9 everynight. for the last thirteen days. the same conversation every night. there is a strange woman in the house that has been sneaking in. and why doesn't anyone believe her. she talked to the woman and now the woman is gone. and she is all alone. in the strange house and she is scared. and she doesn't want to live alone and why did she move to this awful place?

and no matter how much we reassure her--nobody lives with you gram. that's your house. you've lived there for 35 years. nobody can get in your house. there is nothing to be afraid of you are perfectly safe--we calm her down enough for her to go to sleep, but the phonecall comes again the next night. so the cycle continues. night after night.

the first week got progressively worse. from seeing the woman to speaking with her to telling her to leave. from being afraid and sad on the phone to angry and nasty. my dad was handling the phonecalls every night, with my mother and i waiting on baited breathe to see how it would turn out.

until last friday when my parents had gone out for the evening and she called while i was getting ready to go out. my parents had promised to call her from the car, hopefully getting her settled for the night before she had the opportunity to get upset and call the house. but she did. and i had to handle it. and how do you tell your 83 year old grandmother that she is safe and just imagining a person that she has utterly convinced herself exists. how do you tell her to relax. to stop crying. and stop yelling. that shes confused. all while trying not to make her more upset than she already is but you are choking back tears yourself. luckily after 45 minutes and she was calm enough to hang up, i was already late to pick up andrew from the airport so i had to pull myself together and physically didnt have the time to freak out about what had just happened.

until i got in the car. because i always do my best thinking in the car. and everything of that week hit me and before i knew it i was absolutely bawling. i just couldn't get over that this was happening. that a month ago yes, she had alzheimers, but she was okay. she was holding her own living alone and now she is insisting that her house is her new apartment building with imaginary strangers living in the other rooms. and as much as i had been upset all weeek about overhearing these conversations, it was NOTHING compared to actually having this phone conversation with her myself. and as i was going over this all in my head. trying, like the academic that i am, to reason through the hows and the whys, some of the answer hit me. where did all of this start? this strange woman? and i figured it out. the spare bedroom of her house, the place where the woman "lives" has full length mirror closet doors. my grandma doesn't see very well, especially in the dark. she is seeing herself. and the 'woman' that nobody sees but her IS her. only in her ALZ state, she doesn't realize its herself. and it puts her into such a state of hysteria. the realization that my grandma was confusing her own reflection for that of an actual person was harder than acknowledging that this entire situation is happening. i called renee, and as i've already said, she was a total sweetheart and true best friend to me.

she seemed to be a bit better after we took the mirrored doors off of that closet, and explained to her and showed her during daylight that nobody was there, but that same night (saturday), she was back to the same behavior. by saturday night it was clear that somethign serious needed to be done. we all knew that home care was the answer. although what i had convinced myself was needed wasn't the same as my dad. i had convinced myself that a few hours of mental stimulation, companionship, and health care during the day would be enough to get her to a better lifestyle. but my dad, knowing better than me, believes that she is in complete need of 24 hour home elder care.

until the following days when she got worse. the phonecalls became more intense, and her demeaner was rapidly changing. we went from making phonecalls and internet queries about home care, to seriously considering nursing homes. prices and quality reviews. program offerings and family 'success stories.'

as much as i had been staying strong on the outside, hearing that a nursing home was actually being considered completely tore me up. partially because i still refuse to accept that this is happening. and partially because i know-in my gut, in my heart, in my brain-that she will be miserable there. she will not understand why she has to be there. she won't forgive us for it. she will get worse, fast.

i don't know why, and i'm not asking, but the conversation of what needs, and will, be happening very soon has changed back to home care. i don't think my dad could swallow the idea of a nursing home quite yet either.

and i know i should stop complaining. and whining. and crying. but i just cant. i can talk to my mom and dad about what's going on. i can be an adult about it. but when i'm alone, when i'm simply trying to accept all of this, sometimes its just too much. i know that so many people are going through so much worse at any given moment. but right now, this is about all i can handle. and i'm barely handling it.

i've said it before and i'll say it again, i know we'll pull through. i know that when the dust settles of what and how we will proceed with getting my gram the care that she needs, everyone will be better off. i just want to get to that point. sooner, rather than later.

thank you to those of you who have reached out, and please know that your sentiments mean the world to me, and keep me going when i feel like i want to crawl into bed and not get out.