Disappointed Joe

Dad walked with a stoop into the room yesterday afternoon. He had just come home from adult care. "How'd it go today," I asked. "Terrible, they didn't let me play the piano. I was all ready to play, but they didn't let me play. Why do you think they did that?"

That conversation went on unhappily for an hour. He threatened not to go back if they didn't let him play. He wanted to call the center right then and have it out with the director. But the bottom line got down to his real desire. He wanted to go see Dar. Everything would be OK, if he could just go see Dar. He had devised a host of ideas as to how to make it happen. None were logical or possible, but they were a sure bet in his mind. Finally I had to lay the truth on the line to him. "You have an illness that requires you to be supervised on such a trip. It's just the way it is." "NO! I am not sick, I am healed and you know it!", was his answer. It always is.

From there his disappointment grew and wandered back to not being able to play, not needing to go to the center where he wasn't wanted, not having a life. Then he went to his room. By supper he never mentioned it again. This morning he was off to the center ready to play and came home again disappointed. He didn't play again. The center sent out its new schedule today. He will play on Tuesday. He doesn't understand. He physically can't understand. He went to his room unhappy.

We took him to our daughter's house for supper tonight. It wasn't quite what he expected. My wife and I were going out alone on a preplanned outing, (getting someone to watch him isn't a spur of the moment affair) and he was going to have dinner with our daughter and her husband. As we headed for the door the disappointment registered large in his eyes. He knows he is being "babysat", and it is a situation that rankles him. Why should he, the warrior who saved the western world, need a babysitter. He can't understand and the disappointment is clear.

On the ride home he said, "So, we are going to open my checking account tomorrow, right?" What would be a good response to that? Somehow he had taken a conversation that he had originated a few days ago, to which he had been given a firm and complete negative answer, and recreated a positive answer in his own mind. "But you said", he said with great disappointment. Life hasn't rolled his way too well this week.

There is a skit that dramatizes the descent into Alzheimer's and its many disappointments very well. One person sits in a chair alone at the front. He/she is holding a bouquet of flowers. The other person comes in and says, "Mom/Dad, I have been watching you now for the past many months as you drive. You don't really watch at corners as you should. You don't always stop at stop signs as you should. You are really becoming too dangerous to yourself and others to drive anymore." Then that person takes away a flower from the bouquet and throws it on the floor and leaves. After an interval that person returns. "Mom/Dad, the bank called me again today about your account. You have overdrawn again. It was something about a check you sent to a relief agency in Africa. They showed me your records for the past few months and you have been writing a series of very strange checks and depleting your resources. I am afraid that I am going to have to use my power of attorney and take over all your banking concerns from now on." Then they take another flower from the bouquet and throw it on the floor and leave. The person with the flowers clutches the remaining ones more closely to themself. The other person returns. "Mom/Dad, I want to talk to you about last night at the restaurant. You just kept talking to strangers and making them feel uncomfortable. The poor waitress didn't know whether to laugh or run away in fear. You have been doing this a lot when we go out to eat lately. I am sorry, but we won't be able to go out and eat anymore." They take another flower from the bouquet and throw it on the floor and leave. The person in the chair looks in despair at the growing pile of discarded flowers and the hugs the remaining few. The other person returns and says, "Mom/Dad, your outburst in church this morning really disrupted the service. When the congregation is done singing, you have to be done with them. When the pastor is done saying the Lord's Prayer, you can't go on repeating it out loud. You have been doing this more and more lately and it really makes the others in the congregation feel uncomfortable. We are not going to be able to take you to church with us on Sunday mornings anymore." They take another flower and throw it on the floor and leave. The person in the chair hangs their head and lays the other two flowers idly in their lap. "Mom/Dad, I have noticed that you have been dressing quite oddly lately. When it is warm you have on three layers of heavy clothes and when it is cool you go outside without even a jacket. Your clothes don't match anymore and I am not sure they are even clean. This just isn't like you, but for your own protection, we are having an aide come in each day to get your dressed properly and make sure your clothes are clean." They take the second to last flower and throw it on the floor and leave. The last flower lays alone and untouched on the lap. The other person returns. "Mom/Dad, the aide is doing a good job, but complains that you are not cooperative. I have come to the end of my options. We are going to put you in a home today." The last flower is taken and thrown on the floor.