I'm so sorry. When I had to sit with my grandma a month or so ago...
What I don't like to think about is that she was almost herself again, when I was with her during the day. As if the encouraged activities of the full nursing home actually brought her back. She was remembering things she *never* remembered when I visited her in assisted living. She had grown so private and paranoid and delusional. Maybe it's genetic.
Of course, at night, she was confused again. And I was happy to be there, dozing off in a chair, hearing her speak nonsense into the dark. (Why did they put a bright blue light in every damn room!? The LED of what I assume is a wireless access point...)
And sure enough. Every since that time, I've suffered from bouts of full-on dementia. A week of fever, sure, but worse than that. Just... trying to sleep, and shifting between reality and dream and not knowing which is which.
(I blame Covid, I had an extreme fever I had to douse with cold showers and broth, but it stuck with me- the first vaccine dose seemed to help some-)
I just need more REM sleep, probably. And I've come a long way to restoring a schedule for that which doesn't involve day-"dreams".
But my grandmother on my other side had waking nightmares too, much earlier.
...Thankfully, the gma I looked after didn't try to pull out her IV during that night. Only in the evening, and she listened to me, and recognized me as her grandchild. Recognized me. When I stayed with her before, for weeks, she hadn't known who I was at all.
So yeah she's sometimes herself with better care.
after I wrote her off as gone, which itself was horrible when she was *still there* just trapped in nightmares.
This should probably be a personal DM of commiseration, but I muddled my way through delusions today, so it isn't.