My mother is 83 and suffers from dementia. Her mother suffered the same thing when she was in her 70s so when mummy’s own began at a few years after 70, we kind of knew this was a thing that ran in her family. This is scary because, it means, we the children ought to start preparing for our old age and this is where my pain is.
First off, let me describe to you the nightmare called dementia and I’ll put it in lay man’s terms because frankly, even though my mum has been living with this for some years, I have never fully understood it, it still baffles me many times I go to visit her.
First was my grandma, my mother’s mother; we were much younger when her symptoms began. She was always quarrelsome, claiming someone in the house stole her money. She would be looking for money she claimed she put in a place and we would help her search for it but…we never found any money where she said she hid it; she would them point accusing fingers at either my grandpa or their house help or even some of us her grandkids. We would of course immediately deny we took her money…nobody took grandma’s money, it was just her brain playing tricks on her. She may or may not even have the money she frantically searched the house for and never find.
Then, my mother began this same thing years back, months after she turned 70, that’s when I noticed; mum would go to the market and quarrel with people she had been buying things from saying she paid them but they would say, “Mama, you never pay me, o.”
You see, she forgot she hadn’t paid!
We would be called to come take her home because before that time these quarrelling with people outside began, my siblings and I realized mum was behaving like grandma; so she wasn’t allowed to go far from the house unsupervised; so we got her a nanny.
The nanny’s job was of course help to clean but mostly to supervise mummy’s movements. Then mummy began to forget places, she would go on walks with her nanny and insists certain roads led somewhere else. This made us panic because we realized, if she goes out unsupervised, she may never remember the way back home.
Over the years, she gradually depreciated; she would just be talking to imaginary people, people from her past, some of whom are dead and those alive are far, elderly like her and living in our village.
Mum would be holding conversations with her sister who died during the war; not everyday conversations like, she is missing the dead sister but telling her to go cook or clean the house or…like she was still a kid talking to her younger sister.
At this stage of course, mum was an outpatient at one of our psychiatric wards. We were told it would only get worse and it did…she couldn’t do much for herself years later; she couldn’t bathe herself, cooking for herself and dad was out of question, she didn’t recognise any of us her children nor our children and many times would just be silent for hours.
But the worst was yet to come; she became like a child at 78years old; she couldn’t even use the bathroom by herself, so we began to use adult diapers; he as bathe and brushed by the nanny. This of course meant, we couldn’t get a nanny that would stay with her long enough; no matter the amount they charged us…we paid, they would leave after one month or two of collecting their pay…they couldn’t cope.
I get it
I get it because though she is my mum, the demand of caring for her, watching her 24/7 would tell on anyone. See, my mum never slept normal, she is up at 11pm, if she manages to sleep at 9pm. Then she’ll be walking around the house till say 2pm. Many times even threatening to open the door, banging on the door sometimes and screaming to be let out…in the midnight!
At first the drugs helped, later…it just seemed nothing worked!
The nanny would call me and the following day, I would be at my parents to check on her.
Mum sleeps in the early afternoon and…so yes, I know a nanny or nurse for that matter would have a lot to do; ensuring mummy eats her meal, ensuring she takes her meds, ensuring she is clean, the house doesn’t stink…clothes washed…it’s a hard one, exhausting, even and so we agreed we needed an extra hand and that’s how come we got this lady to care for mum. We paid her N150k, that was her asking price…I didn’t pay everything, my siblings and I contribute monthly to her pay and the other nanny generally helped to clean the house while the main one, we called her chief, took care of mum.
Chief of course moved in with my parents and at the beginning, everything looked like it was going well. We had begun to thank God for bringing her into mum’s life because the other nanny, wasn’t educated but she did her best, just that caring for our parents was overwhelming for her. Anyway, chief appeared to be our solution and we soon continued with our lives; I had young children, ages 8, 13 and 16, so I was glad that I could be fully involved in their lives once again.
Chief had been with mum for maybe 6 months when on one of those visits to mum, I hugged her and she flinched, like she was hurting somewhere.
You know, dementia takes so much from the sufferer, they can’t even tell you where or how they hurt if they are hurting from a fall, headache, pain inflicted on them by others…they can’t tell you. Chief said, mum had been acting up and that in the last few days she didn’t want people touching her, except, her, chief. I accepted that story because chief had gotten really close to mum…
I was already heading back to my house when something told me to go back and check my mum. I went to her room and lifted her buba; I saw dark bruises. I called chief, I asked her if she saw the bruises, she told me without breaking a sweat that mum was fond of hitting herself against her bed or scratching herself if she isn’t allowed to go out in the midnight.
I asked her why she didn’t mention it, she told me she didn’t want me bothered since she had after one or two episodes began to tie wrappers around her to prevent her from harming herself and she had since cut her nails to prevent the self-inflicted scratches.
I accepted it as a plausible reason.
The next time I visited, I found bruises on her thighs and back, old welts! I swear, I had no idea anyone could be beating a woman who was almost 80 years old. My father was around, he is still lucid, and the other nanny was around…so?
After like another say maybe 4 months later, I was playing a solitaire game on my phone when this ad came up, small camera to be installed in a house. It was even a cheap one, I think I paid N4,500 for it. It did not rotate or anything, it was just one small thing I put on top of my mum’s wardrobe in her room. I didn’t tell anyone, not my dad, not the two nannies or even my cousin who came to stay briefly at my parents’ place.
Because I wasn’t thinking it could catching anything, I wasn’t prepared for, I didn’t immediately visit my parents for another 3 weeks or was it even a month later. The camera, it’s a cheap one, had recorded and the battery had died but I was able to get footage when I got home to my laptop that evening…I wept!
The first few hours, say 12 to 15 hours, I kept skipping to see, you know watching a cctv can be boring…I saw chief caring for mum like she was genuinely concerned for her. I saw her coaxing mum to eat, feeding her with a spoon. I saw her get up and call for the other nanny to take the tray of food…saw a few things that you know, were normal until, I skipped many parts and one image of mum falling made me stop to rewind and see.
Chief had been beating my mum!
Oh, in some scenes, I saw she fed mum, bathe her, was even singing when she was rubbing cream on mum’s body but there was one where mum had soiled herself after she came into the room from the bathroom and chief went berserk, beating her and covering her mouth to stop her from screaming.
I died!
I was enraged! I was at the police station first thing the following morning; they advised I go to the station close to where my parents lived.
I immediately went to the police station and got her arrested!
She pleaded, said she was sorry that it was a moment of anger and that she was tired…blah, blah blah. I made sure she was in police cell for a long time! This is just evil! This explains the bruises I had been seeing on my mum!
To be fair, the video showed several times she had cared for mama, wiping her, cleaning her…but that’s why she is paid, right?
Every time I recall that ugly scene, slapping my mum and covering her mouth to stop her screaming, my heart beats so fast as if I will faint.
Though since she left, we have changed nannies like three more times; they know about the cctv watching them by the way, I upgraded, I got a better device, and replaced the cheap one that caught Chief.
Though my mother is still alive she is barely there; caring for her is tough; I can’t snuff life off her just because caring for her is a tad difficult for me now…I will grow old someday, my children are watching how I take care of my mother and they will do likewise when it’s my turn. But I pray never to catch this thing called dementia, it is ugly!
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)