Hearing Voices

Taking Mom to see Dr. Vadalia at Generations always seems like such a waste of time. He usually sits, dressed in a navy pin-striped suit, and asks how Mom is feeling. Five minutes later we are in the car for the 35-minute trek home.

We sit waiting in the "session" room (at 4:30 yesterday), an empty office with a desk and office chair plus two side chairs and a low, square table piled with miscellaneous magazines like New Mechanic, Good Housekeeping, and Cat Fancy. Along one wall is a bookcase lined with binders with "neuropsychiatry" something or other on the spines. I reach for my iPhone as Mom thumbs through a magazine--I don't pay attention to which one--but she interrupts my focus on Words With Friends a couple of times to show me a scenic photograph. "Wouldn't that be a pretty picture to paint!" she says each time.

With a soft knock on the door, Dr. Vadalia comes in. He is a small-framed, thin man with a thick accent, without doubt he grew up in India. Mom doesn't like him at all and complains how much she hates having to see him. He asks her how she is doing. She immediately tells him how she's been hearing voices. How she often thinks I have been visiting with someone outside but when she asks, I tell her I haven't been. She tells him how she hears motors running when she's not wearing her hearing aid. And how the other day when our neighbor Sandra was sitting and crocheting with her, she asked Sandra, "Do you hear those people talking?" Sandra didn't. Moments later, Mom asked, "Do you hear singing?" Mom actually investigated what might be the source of the singing by making sure her stereo and computer speakers were off. They were.

Dr. Vadalia quizzes her a little bit about how long it's been going on. She says for months. I'm not entirely sure. However there have been instances when she's thought either John or I have popped our heads through her door and yelled for her to get up. I've attributed those instances to dreaming, but now I'm not so sure. Dr. Vadalia excuses himself to look up her medical chart on the Elliot System, mumbling something about blood work. When he returns, he asks Mom if the voices started after she fell and broke her nose. She insists they started long before that.

Dr. Vadalia tells us that hearing things that are not there is something that a small percentage of Alzheimer's patients suffer. He says if it is frightening for Mom or very distracting, they do have medication. However, the medication has side effects and he is reluctant to put her on them if she is dealing with it. Mom says they don't bother her at all.

We spent a few more minutes discussing how well Mom is doing, that Dr. Bouregard's follow-up test indicated things were pretty much the same, and if we have any questions, not to hesitate to call. Driving away, I feel it was a worthwhile trip considering we have a better sense of why Mom is hearing voices.