Pill Play

We had a really great day yesterday! We were wide awake, we ate, interfaced, went to the restroom and did it all at a normal level of function!! YEA!! We celebrate good days! Today we are back to the, now, more familiar pattern of heavy sleep and incontinence. But the day is early. We’ll see where it takes us as we move through it.

We have had a shift in another routine, though. The little pot of pills that mom would take in the morning and evening have now got to be put in her mouth directly so that she can chew them and swallow them without losing them. (FYI: swallowing is one of those things that is impacted by Alzehimer’s. It becomes harder and harder to swallow until even liquids can be difficult. I think thick liquids like applesauce are actually easier for her to swallow than liquids or solids, like her pills. Hence, the chewing of her pills.)

Mom has begun playing some fun games with her pills. She will take them out of the cup and line them up on her dinner tray. Or she will use her fork or spoon to scoop them out of the pill tub. Either way many of them end up on the floor and I have to scramble around under the chair to find them. This is apparently quite funny to watch… To Watch. Humph!  ;)

Another favorite play of late is to take whatever she is eating and pile it into the pill cup. I’m really not sure where that comes from? Maybe it’s because they are applesauce cups, originally, and she thinks that she should be eating out of them? But never the less, the pills begin to break down when the moist, warm food hits them, so I begin a rapid feeding process to get the food and pills into her before they breakdown and melt into the cup. Again, the problem with swallowing comes into consideration and so we try to balance slow chew and swallow with the rapidly dissolving pills. Not as funny to watch apparently, but that’s when the feeding games begin and mom starts playfully pretending she won’t open her mouth for food until I cajole her into it or laugh at her joke then tell her I’ll send her to bed without dessert. Hey… It worked on me when I was the kid!

So now, I just pop the pills in her mouth for her and we avoid all the fun for her and all the games for me! I know… I’m just no fun anymore!