Dementia is the worse disease in the world. It changes people. It takes a loving, caring Father and makes him place obsessive attention on things like mail, the President, or his car. It makes him live in the past with a multitude of sad yet twisted regrets, instead of in the now with those who love him. It causes him to become violently angry at small unimportant things like how the toilet flushes.
My father was the most wonderful person in my world for years. Now, he's the most annoying. He has dozens of daily rituals that are unavoidable and unchanging. We are not allowed to go anywhere midday from 1:00pm to 3:00pm because that's when the mail is delivered. In his mind, if we are gone, someone will steal the mail and he won't get his retirement checks or something else equally important. Yet, the only things that arrive are Junk Mail and mails begging for donations, which he happily gives. Every piece of mail is an issue. He goes over each one like it's a gold mine hiding a rich nugget. Then he obsesses. He brings each piece to me one at a time and asks my opinion on the sender's message or request. I explain that it's junk mail to no avail. He tells me it's important and was specially sent to him. He received a mass postcard sent to all republicans with President Bush's picture on it, and thinks it was a personal message from the President just to him. He get NRA letters and thinks they are personally thanking him for keeping our rights protected, and he sends them money every month. Every insurance Letter is a solicitation for him to change companies and he thinks they are automatically going to change him and I have to stop it. He wants me to write letters to all these nutcases and scam companies thanking them for their continued contact with him. It goes on and on.
Then we have the news. Gawd help me if President Obama is on. My father sees Obama as the man who is going to steal all his old trucks and make him buy new ones. It doesn't matter that my father's thinking on this is wrong, twisted, over the edge - it just matters that he believes heart and soul.
Some of his thoughts are so irrational that I have to do fake letters and send them to him explaining the twisted issue in his mind. Last year he was sure that if he did not go out and vote, that he would lose his retirement pay. And he had to vote Republican because they were watching him and they would know how he voted and if he voted some other way, they would tell his Union, and he would lose his retirement.
I had hoped I could count on my father for a little help with Mama, but that thought has left. I let him sit with her only two times, while I ran a short errand. The first time, he took her out to get her hair cut, in her night gown, with no panties or sweater, and it was cool out. He had her walk quite a ways to the truck and even had her open the big cyclone rolling gate. She almost died from it. She spent six days in bed recovering from this short hardship and my father could not understand why.
I let him sit with her a second time, with explicit instructions to NOT take her anywhere. Instead of using her walker to go to the bathroom and back, he made her walk alone, because he said it would make her strength come back. It took her three days to recover. This was the last time he was left with her. His dementia prevents him from understanding her condition or instructions about her condition. He has convinced himself that her medications are the demon killing her and if stopped all medications, her oxygen and using walking devices, and just got out and ran around a little bit, then everything would be okay.
The past few days have been exceedingly difficult. My father received a letter from the Veterans' Administration. It was simply junk mail advertising "Reverse Mortgages." My father read one sentence in it he understood, while not understanding any of the rest of it. He pointed out the letter to me and said, "I'm holding on to this sis. It proves they can't put me out of my house." I looked at it and told him, "That's not what that says dad. It's about Reverse Mortgages and only pertains to buying a loan from them." He threw a fit saying, "Fine, I'll just throw it away, I don't no anything." I explained, "Dad, if you'll read that whole letter, word for word, and not just that one line, you'll understand what it's talking about and it's not what you think. When it says, they won't put you out of your house that means if you let them take your home until you die, you can stay in it until you die. But if you die, there is no guarantee Mama or us can stay. It's a reverse mortgage, which you don't need, because you own your home and make enough income without it." He wouldn't listen. Instead, he said I was treating him like a child.
This same episode was following by another tantrum in which he said, "You treat me like a child. I can't go anywhere alone because of your mother." This made little to no sense to me, because he still drives and comes and goes as he pleases, usually alone. This time I got angry. I know that's bad, but I was going on 80 hours of no sleep. I challenged back, "How do you figure that? How do you rationalize that? Mama has been sick for two months and doesn't tell you yes or no to anything, so don't put anything else off on her. If you want to go somewhere alone, get in the car and go, just like you always do, just like you do three days a week or more, and quit making shit up. I don't treat you like a child. I just point out that you need to read every word in those stupid junk mail letters just like you do a contract, so you don't get screwed by some scam. If you want to pay for one of those scams and let your friends see how stupid someone can be, go ahead. It's your money, blow it any way you want, but don't bring the letters to me and expect me to say 'Yah that's a good deal dad, go get screwed by them,' because I won't."
Of course, later I apologized. I know he cannot help it. It was entirely my fault for not handling the situation better like I usually do. All the lost sleep while taking care of Mama, all the stress over not working enough to pay my own bills due to taking care of Mama, and dealing with my father's dementia on top of all that -- just causes me to lose it sometimes. I wish there was a way to make all this work better.
My father also has issues over the new toilet. His bathroom was 50 years old with the original toilet, sink, floors, tub, etc. And there was mold all over the floor under the toilet where it leaked for a long time. My husband and the baby both have asthma. So I completely tore the bathroom out and replaced everything (at my own expense of $3,000 and lot of my own work). It's the only bathroom in this 1000 sq.ft. home, and it's very tiny. The old toilet was glued to the floor and had to be pried up, plus the under plumbing had to be replaced due to being completely rusted out. The bathroom is beautiful now, and so easy to clean with ceramic tile floors and marble countertop, and new mirrors. All my dad can do is throw a fit every time he shits, because he wads up a ton of paper and it doesn't get sucked down like the old toilet. I told him to flush a couple times, once after he shits and once each time he wipes and throws paper wads in the bowl. But he doesn't listen. Instead he overflows the toilet and I clean it up. This happens about twice a week. I hate my life.
I'm still only partially moved out of my home that is being foreclosed. If I don't get everything out, then I just lose it along with the house. My furniture is still there, most of my clothes, a garage and shed full of items, my precious baby items and keepsakes, so much ... and I don't know how I'll move it all.
I wanted to at least get my Appliances here to my parent's house. Their appliances are so old they don't work well anymore. My father never throws anything away or replaces it ... he just tries to repair it or use it until it completely dies out. Their refrigerator only cools to 60 degrees, and the freezer won't freeze anything solid, only partially. The washer is an antique that goes off-balance about ten times for every load you put in, and the dryer has a belt screaming when you turn it on, plus it doesn't dry anything unless you run it four times. I had new appliances at my house and decided to bring them down as replacements while my brothers were visiting and could help me load and unload them. My dad gave each of my brothers a set of keys so they could use his truck while they were visiting for the week. I asked them to go pick up the appliances and switch them out for me. They said they were happy to do it. The day before the swap was to take place, my dad's dementia attacked. All of sudden no one could drive his old pick up. He was afraid they would hot rod and ruin it, or drive too fast with the appliances in the back and tip them over, or ... it just went on and on. My brother told me he was going to go get the appliances anyway. But I told him, "No." If he did that, my father would have an ongoing dementia attack and focus on every sound and problem the truck had for the next year, blaming it over and over on the trip to pick up appliances. So, at the last minute, I had my son rent a truck, load the appliances alone, and bring them out to me. It cost me $160. I'm already losing half my income to caretaking, and now I have to fork over money I really don't have to spend. This month I decide whether to let my truck or van go back to the dealer because I can't pay payments on both anymore. I really hate my life.
This post first appeared on Mama Died, Dad's Dementia + A Grandchild, please read the originial post: here
