Paranoia and other pleasant things

Defense

Guy comes in, says he came with his Ma to get her examined for the handicap comission, and that she’s in an ambulance outside the Ambulatoriu, waiting to be examined . I ask for the papers, learn that she has Dementia and is paralysed, so she has to be examined in the car.

The woman is alert but her answers are illogical (for example I ask her what’s the name of her son and she starts to tell me how she needs to go back home to sow some seeds) and she has no idea of the date or the place she’s at. Seeing that her memory and attention are also below the ground, I conclude that I saw enough and go back to my place to write the papers.

We make some smalltalk with her son while I’m writing and I ask when did she first start to exhibit the symptoms, especially since in her ID picture she looks like a healthy and strong woman. He then almost bursts into tears and tells me that she was a strong woman indeed, raising her kids alone and working at the field most of her life. She was like this until 12 years ago, when a man has beaten and raped her. He was caught three years later, when he tried to rape two other women, but by that time the damage was done - she turned to madness to protect herself.

He described how she started to gradually retreat from life and from interactions with the others ; how she washed less and less until she stopped washing herself; and how when she was asked why she was doing it she said that she wanted to look ugly and smell because this way she could be sure that nobody tries to touch her again . He described how she hit him when he tried to wash her; and how she then slipped into dementia.

I fear the disease she has most of all, even more than cancer. Yet in her case, I’m not sure if it wasn’t for the better. You see, this way she forgot.

Posted under: hospital