Poison Pimples

"I have these bumps on my chin," Mom says as we drive to her psychiatrist appointment at 1 pm.
"Bumps on your chin?" I ask, feeling her chin. "I don't feel any bumps.
"Yes, they have poison in them," she says. "They're on my cheek too."
"The only bumps on your cheek are your cheek bones," I answer, feeling her cheek.
She's always rubbing her chin because the stubble of hair there irritates her. We just shaved it a couple of days ago, so I'm thinking this started with the scratchy hairs there.
"Yes, I think Emily gave me these bumps on my chin," she continues.
"We're going to the doctor, so you can tell him about them," I conclude.
"What are we going to do with the Russian baby?" she asks next.
"What Russian baby?" I ask.
"Roz came home with a Russian baby," she says.
"No, she didn't," I correct her. "Roz got a little dog, not a baby."
Roz does have young cousins in New York who were adopted four years ago from Russia. I wonder if this fact migrated from some storage place in Mom's brain and attached itself to the recent dog information.
After we enter Dr. Chen's office, Mom starts to tell him about her bumps, but now they are pimples and they are on her hands.
He gently examines her hands and says, "You don't need to worry about them. I don't think they will bother you tomorrow."
He doesn't say, "There are no bumps here!"
"They're on my legs too," Mom asserts, but again he reassures her.
"Your fingers are purple on this hand," he says, but I tell him we've already discussed that circulation problem with her geriatrician.
"There was a patient across the street from my mother who died of these bumps," Mom continues. "Her name was Cinderella... Paradise."
"What a lovely name," he ventures.
"Yes. You probably think I'm crazy," she says.
"How are things at Ocean View Assisted Living?" he asks.
"Very aggravating," she answers. "Everybody is teasing me because the door to my room wouldn't open."
I don't explain to him that when she wheels away from the table half-way through a meal and arrives back at her room, she finds the door locked because the staff does not want her to enter and try to get out of the wheelchair into her recliner or onto the toilet.
Somehow she next mentions her husband, Kermit, who died in 1993.
"He went to the Colorado School of Mines," she says. I don't say, "No, that was your brother Reynold."
"--and he got a bunch of gold and silver slates and carried them home--" I don't say, "No, that was your grandfather who was accused of highgrading."
"--to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. A.R. Gustafson. They died. They fell from that silver and gold, carrying it upstairs from that place--"
"Oh, they did," Dr. Chen murmurs.
"They thought he was down at the chocolate shop, and I thought, 'Oh, that's sweet.'"
"Yes, that's sweet," he repeats, smiling.
"And I went down there. He had these bumps and I thought I was going to die from these bumps," she continued.
I wondered how long this tale by free association could last, but then she did a quick self-assessment.
"You must think that sounds pretty silly," she said. "You must wonder how a well-bred woman could have a dream like that, but I did. Of course, they were--"
"Do you have a list of her meds?" he asked me.
"No, they haven't changed since you saw her a month ago," I reply.
"How is she doing?" he asks.
"She hasn't been violent with the staff in the last month," I begin. "At least no one has reported to me any scratching or hitting. But when I come in the late afternoon, she is often very upset and crying about something that is a complete hallucination, something from the past that isn't even anything that happened to her. Like one day she was crying, 'My mother lost her baby... Byron and Serena had to walk to get the doctor.' But this happened to her grandmother, and the child Serena who went to get help is her mother. She thinks these things happened to her, but it was before she was born, in 1899 or something. I just try to take her out to do something, distract her, and she forgets about it."
"You're right to redirect her with real activity in the present," he says. "I don't think it's a good idea to try to medicate her for this. Let's just keep her Seroquel at 25 mg once a day. And maybe this time you can come back in three months."
"Oh, good!" I say. These visits are so pointless--I'm delighted to come less often.
"But these pimples," Mom says, trying to regain the spotlight. "You think there's no reason to have them under a microscope and be seen...?
"No, I don't think so," he answers. "I don't see them."
"You don't see 'em? Well, they're there!" she retorts emphatically. "Why do they come? After a night alone, there they are again."
"Well, it's possible," he ventures. "But you don't need to worry about them."
"Positive? They're not positive? Okay, I won't worry.... I was a Navy nurse in World War II," she counters.
"Yes?" he answers.
"I worked very hard to get everybody in the catalog of US News & World Report. And they had these pimples."
"Oh, I see, " he says as I thank him and push her in her wheelchair out of the office.
We go to the lobby to get ice cream, as usual, for a treat. She has a Nestle's Crunch bar and I have an ice cream sandwich.
On the way home, she is reflective: "I guess I don't need to worry so much about these pimples because everybody dies of something."