The good news is...a doctor at the VA hospital (where my husband currently is a patient) finally listened to me. No, this isn't about me, but about the fact that these hallucinations have happened to my husband before, and I pretty much figured out what was probably causing them, and wouldn't someone PLEASE pay attention to what I know/surmise and make an informed medical decision?

The medications he takes to control his Parkinson's are very powerful psychotropic meds. He was bleeding somewhere internally and they wanted to clean him out so they could go in and look for the source of the bleeding. So they had him fasting for two days.

When they eventually gave him his meds (after withholding them for a day and a half because it takes that long for the ponderous VA bureaucracy to wend its way to action) they hit him like a ton of bricks. With no food to buffer their effects, he went into orbit.

He was seeing aliens. He was sure the third floor of the hospital was in a vast conspiracy against the fifth floor of the hospital. He wanted me to find an old fashioned Irish priest to perform an exorcism (proof he hasn't really moved away from his Catholic roots). Because he was seeing demons. And cats floating in air. And little round aliens about 8 inches across.

They had abducted him and brought him back in a bus.

And on and on. I had just gotten home from visiting him at the hospital when he called saying he was in danger, and I should come back and get him. Wearily I climbed once more into the car and drove through Friday rush hour traffic (why do they call it "rush" when everyone's doing 15 mph?).

When I got there he quizzed me about our cats, making me prove I was who I said I was, trying to trip me up and show how I was one of "them". I passed his test (though for one horrible moment I blanked out on the name of our first cat) and he trusted me again.

For the rest of the day and on into the night, I stayed by his bedside, talking him down and attaching him to reality as best I could, while trying to tell every medical person who hove into sight--first, that if he wasn't watched constantly he would rip out the IVs (again) and try to get out of bed and fall (again); and second, that he was od'd on a medication and would somebody PLEASE contact the doctor.

The gastro intern showed up and of course she hadn't a clue, except to say he needed to be cleaned out before being scoped. Yada, yada, yada. That wasn't the point of crisis, thankyouverymuch.

Finally they got the resident psychiatrist (intern tagging along) from the gerontology unit and she listened to me and made a couple of med adjustments and he was much quieter when I left. I am so grateful to her that she actually listened to me and then talked to him and listened to him (he told her a wonderfully wild and intricate tale).

I told the ward nurse to keep an eye on him (and why), but I'm sure they've heard it all before (I got that impression) and were not at all interested in my request.

He wanted me to stay with him all night, but I was too exhausted and hungry. I know I've reached my limit when I start to cry at every emotional punch. I lose my resiliency. Plus I had left my bag at work and had to retrieve it before 11 p.m. when the place closes up for the weekend.

He has a cell phone to call me and I slept in my clothes, ready to leap into action if he called.

But it was a blessedly quiet night.

Today is another day. Onward into the fog....