How do we be more comfortable visiting an Alzheimer's patient?
Most anyone who is isolated or confined etc enjoys company - any company, so it doesn't matter if your grandmother doesn't recognize you. I am sure that your visits are very uplifting to your grandmother, and I would make THAT be the focus of your efforts at coping with your feelings during and after the visits.
The visits should focus on HER enjoyment, HER needs, and HER capacities. This approach is guaranteed to make the actual visits as enjoyable and free of upset as possible. If you are not sure what would please her and she is currently living in a care facility, the easiest way to get this information is to ask the staff. The other obvious and logical way to discover what her needs, capacities or sources of enjoyment actually ARE, is to ask her biological daughter. I would approach your Step-Aunt by asking her what HER MOTHER might enjoy. That would accord your Step-Aunt the respect and special status she wants and deserves - both as biological child AND as LONGTIME CARETAKER. (If, in fact your Step-Aunt actually does harbor any negative feelings toward you, I am also fairly certain it would go a long way to helping eliminate them.)
Though not your fault, while abroad "most of your life" you have, during your long-term absence from the country, missed "a lot" with respect to your grandmother's illness. This being the case, you cannot begin to understand the DEPTH of "the trenches" in which the stateside branch of your family has been "struggling to hold the line" against this horrible disease. Alzheimer's is a chronic, progressive, heartbreakingly debilitating disease - and both the PATIENT AND the patient's CAREGIVER(s) suffer the effects equally. Knowing this, hopefully you NOW understand why it's unreasonable to expect to be updated, accommodated and treated like "a player." Everyone's just too tired... Also, unless acting as hands-on caregivers, few grandchildren are privy to details of grandparents' care - usually the older generation carries that responsibility.
With respect to seeing your grandmother's private medical information/ records, I really cannot see any reason for you to have access. Medical information is highly protected, and your grandmother may have specified that her daughter maintain the highest standards of confidentiality - especially if she knew the nature of her illness (and its probable course) at the time she made her directives.
Sometimes the "absent loved one" re-emerges for brief periods - sparked by the weirdest triggers of memory... So keep visiting! and...
Good luck!
