Last year my mother and i "rescued" my 80 year old grandmother from a nursing home that our family members placed her in, in AZ. They said they couldnt handle her after her hip replacement, and left her in the home. Upon bringing her to California we immediately got her checked up and found that she had been living with a broken hip, that had previously been replaced. An infection arrose that was unnacounted for, so we sent her in for an immediate revision.  When we brought her AZ she claimed that they would not feed her, give her medication, steal her money..so on and so forth. My grandmother was ALWAYS a special case, she had several addictions throughout her life, cigarettes, alcohol, prescription narcotics along with being a narcissist her entire life. She was a compulsive liar, gambler, and hypochondriac. She boar 9 children and treated them as little soldiers, with lots of uncontrollable discipline. She would often leave to work out of town, leaving her eldest to run the household, she would spend her check money away on booze, and would not return for months at a time . She is now 80 years old, frail with "alzheimers". She has been diagnosed with alzheimers by many doctors...but sometimes im not so sure. She has a lot of the symptons, short term memory loss, sometimes confusion of where she is, hallucinations. But other days I KNOW she is perfectly fine, but she still acts ailed. She constantly manipulates my mother and i, and sometimes keeps us grief stricken by the amount of "pain" she claims to have. Everyday her pain varies...it will be in her legs, she will have extreme headaches, arms, shoulders, back, feet. She often complains of a stomach ache, and an inability to breathe.... these allegations i believe dont exist, as she is constantly in the DR's office, her pressure is fine, her heart is good, and her cholesterol is perfect, other than her addictions and hip she has had NO medical problems since the early 60's when she had a brush with cancer.  I believe she is still addicted to medication, and that is why its as if she waits all day long to receive it. She counts the pills as we give them to her, and will tell you if she thinks any are missing. She will tell you ANYTHING just to receive a vicodin. There are days when she will complain of several different pains, and will acknowledge each pain seperately...for example, " Grandma what hurts?"....."my head, it hurts so much, like is someone were pounding on it"........LITERALLY 3 minutes later Ill repeat the question, and she will answer, " Oh its my stomach, i feel like the life is being sucked out of me".....3 minutes later, I repeat the question again, but this time ask if anything else hurts....she will say, " No, nothing hurts except my leg, you know my leg always hurts"........"So you have no pain anywhere else??"...she says "No just in my leg"...."So your head doesnt hurt? Your stomach doesn't hurt, just your leg hurts?"....and she will shake her head and say " yes on a scale of one to ten my leg hurts a nine or eight. But no my head or my stomach dont hurt like they did yesterday, thank god."....Aside from when we give her medications and treats... She is mean, rude, and  frankly sometimes disgusting. We try with our whole entire heart to care for her. To understand her, and love her. In our home she is treated like a live-in celebrity. We treat her to breakfast in bed, lunch, dinner, we fix her showers every other day, manicures, pedicures, hair appointments, physical therapy, the works!!!  Im constantly in her room cleaning making sure she has enough water, snacks, lotions, but most of all to keep her sanitary. She controls her bowels still, but we insist she wear depends....She has REALLY odd tendencies, that i sometimes find she may do out of pure evil. Everything will be well, and when i least expect it.....she poops, wipes, and sticks the tissue in her pocket, or wipes her butt with her robe, or pees in her trash bin, sticks used toilet paper, or soiled depends in any crevice she can find. She even uses articles of clothing when there is ALWAYS  TP available for her, as well as a side of wipes. She has her own restroom, and we keep a potty in her room in case of emergencys. Last week after her shower she accidently pooped on the floor of her bedroom, ((its ok accidents happen)) but instead of notifying me, she wiped it up with her expensive sheets and comforters.  i later found the sheets all balled up in a corner, and i asked her what had happened, and she flat out lied and said she dropped chocolate pudding on them....(she always has pudding her room)......... So i grabbed up her blankets to wash them, and discover it was poopoo! Needless to say i was grossed out, and upset with myself for not checking up on her sooner...But the horrible part is she knew what she had done, she really did, and she was still denying it, and knew she was.  It wasnt an "oops i have alzheimers" moment. She really knew what she was doing....am i crazy or is this old lady just outsmarting all of us?