Who doesn't have 'em?
Dad was having an especially confused day recently, and I asked his caregiver if she had noticed it. Of course, she had. Having worked with Alzheimer's patients (what do you call them...sufferers, or what?), she said that he will have good days and bad days, progressing to good weeks and bad weeks, and downhill from there. This particularly bad day may have been the effects from medication he was prescribed to help his obsessive behavior and to help him sleep. His caregiver said she doesn't like that medication - Seraquil - because it made her previous patient really out of it. It didn't even help him sleep. He must have a really high tolerance for medication. The doctor also prescribed medication especially for insomnia, but it could be habit forming. What to do?
The man doesn't sleep. He stays up obsessing about his checkbook, his car registration being out of date, not having a key for the doors (he actually tried to pry the door open with his pocket-knive...yikes!), his lost alarm clock, or some such important thing.
After obsessing about where his car was, we finally let him have it, with the condition that he not drive without someone in the car. Funny thing is, now that he has it, he just looks in the garage to make sure it's there and doesn't even want to drive it. Sometimes, he even asks whose car it is. I think it's a control issue. He's always been a control freak, which is not a positive thing except that he was a surgeon.
My sister told me today that the man from the Alzheimer's Association that she spoke with after my mom died (and we realized that Dad had a good case of Alzheimer's going ) called to find out how things are going. I'm really impressed that he followed up. She told him about Dad asking his caregivers and others if they would come have sex with him for money. He said that he tells caregivers whom he talks with that if they haven't been propositioned at least once, their patient doesn't have Alzheimer's! Phew! Also, people with Alzheimer's often combine stories or situations from different periods of their lives. For instance, my Dad was a pilot in WWII. Later in life, he practiced medicine in Alaska for doctors who were on vacation for long periods. He now says he worked in Alaska and flew planes from island to island helping sick people.
It's really hard visiting with Dad. He just doesn't have anything to say. He has trouble remembering words and is getting frustrated with his loss of memory. This must be the hardest period for people with Alzheimer's. They know enough to know they're losing it. I just have to ask him questions, and when he tells me the same thing for the 10th time, I just act really interested and engage him in the story.
On a personal note, I really feel for family members who have to care for their Alzheimer's relatives. Just working with my dad is emotionally exhausting...I often go home and cry. It takes a special personality with extreme patience to care for them full-time. It just seems to engulf my world and I don't get anything else done. I'm making mistakes at work, can't seem to get caught up with everything at home (or at least keep up), and I am feeling overwhelmed. Waahhhh!
On a positive note, my family is very understanding, and my Dad is very sweet and gentle. He can get testy and sarcastic, but at least he's not abusive.
I wish I could find matches for all the single socks in the laundry room.
...that's the good, the bad and the ugly update
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I'm so glad you are writing about this. I know that writing about my work as a librarian has helped me work through some things in a way that I couldn't when my thoughts just tumbled around inside.
ReplyDeleteIn my years as a mobile librarian, I provided service to a number of senior communities, some of them ALF's with medical staff. Of course, I only saw the residents who could choose and read books. But they had separate "Alzheimers wings" for residents needing total care and supervision.
At my rural stops I served quite a few retirees, mostly women, and I observed the effects on them when a husband succumbed to the disease. I remember Mrs. S. at Fort Braden, who for years loved to read little Harlequin regency romances, one per day, so that I had to round up 14 that she had not read every two weeks when I went to Fort Braden. I never met Mr. S., as he was not a reader, but when he started having trouble, she would tell me how she and a neighbor had to go looking for him when he wandered out of the yard, and how she didn't know if she could deal with it. Not long after that, I saw no more of Mrs. S.