Watch out She's a Mean One

This story happened not too long ago, we went to a patients room to pick her up for a heart cath. The nurses told us, "watch out she is a mean one!" (A personal note here: I don't care for the pre notice on people's personality. I prefer to treat everyone with love and compassion. It is more difficult when you already have a preconceived notion). I immediately decided that I was going to treat her a good as anyone else. She was the sweetest little lady you ever saw. She was 86, was all of 4'10" and 90 lbs. Her family met us and we all walked to the cath lab together. I was feeling so sorry for her because I figured that the staff was all treating her like she was mean. Poor sweet little lady... Well, half way through the case, she got a little agitated and we gave her a little sedation, it worked the opposite on her. I have never seen such a change in anybody in my life. We all tried to calm her and ended up securing her to the table so that she would not fall off. I don't know if it was the sounds of the machine or what, but she started screaming that we were not doctors and nurses. She felt as though we were torturing her. She needed more work in the Cath lab, but we could not do it under these circumstances. The only way to calm her was to work our way into her crazy thought of torture, we told her we were there to protect her and to take her to safety. We got her out of the room and still had her secured on the bed. I was standing next to her waiting to transport, she was calm and nice again. Suddenly, she pulled herself to a sitting position and pulled so hard that her arm came unsecured, then she proceeded to slap me in the face. Oh, I was mad.........then again my heart sank to think that her life survival skills were telling her to fight. At this point all I could do is laugh, I have never been hit by a patient. I am wanting to care for her, but now I need my own survival skills. When we get her to her room, it took about 8 people at bedside to put her in bed and to secure her, again she got loose and slapped my face. OMG!!! Twice in one day. I am not sure what the moral of this story is, I guess that sometimes you need to watch your own back and believe when you are told that the patient is mean. It is amazing and sad what happens to our minds as we age, dementia is a very real and scary thing for these patients. "Emotions are a response to perception-what you think is true about a situation."I won't change my way of caring for them, because I know that they are in survival mode. It is not personal, and I have to decide who I want to be in these cases. It is still loving and compassionate.