If it weren't for my lovely bride, Dad would be in a home. That isn't just true of now. Taking care of an Alzheimer's patient is not routine work. The things that she does take a lot of time, energy and patience. At the outset, when Dad first moved in, we had gone over a list of things that if he did them, he would have to go to a home. How little did we know then what love and care really meant. While it isn't that I don't have a fair number of responsibilities with my dad, my bride has and does the lion's share of the care. As the disease progresses, so does the load.
One thing that plagues my dad is bowel accidents. Now, they are nobody's favorite topic or event, but they are a frequent part of Dad's life. When he came to live with us 2 1/2 years ago, they were part of his life then, but not to any extent what they are today. It is not uncommon to have an accident 4 or 5 times a week. It is how he deals with them that creates the topic of this blog. When he has an accident in the middle of the night, he goes to his bathroom and rinses out his dirty underwear. (No, he doesn't shower himself, just rinses his underwear and maybe rinses himself as well.) Then he returns his underwear to his room where he hangs them somewhere, wherever he may choose at the time, to dry. A couple of hours later he will wake up again and take the damp underwear down and hide them.
He might stick them in his underwear drawer with the clean ones. He might hide them in the spare bottom drawer of his dresser. He might hide them in the bathroom cabinet. He might hide them under his TV. He might hide them under the cover on the back of his computer chair. I know that he might hide them in all of those places because he has. The next morning he will bring to the laundry room his dirty t-shirt and socks from the previous day. Then my bride has to pay careful attention to the wash. Where, oh where, are the underpants? She has to take an inventory of his dirty clothes daily. If the underwear is not there, she has to go find them. Some days it is easy. The bottom drawer had been his favorite place, but he is getting more creative. Last week she had to search for almost 3 hours to find them. She almost came to the conclusion that he had worn two pairs that day, but she persisted because the smell told her that he had a dirty pair somewhere.
Yes, the smell. Accidents produce that. They produce dirty bed linens also which increases her wash load daily. Besides the smell, however, is the challenge of finding which pair is dirty if he puts them back into the clean underwear drawer. That is accomplished by having to have an underwear inventory. She knows which pair he wears everyday so she can tell which pair he wore yesterday. That is a job that requires a lot of love. I am a lucky man! It also, though, requires from her a lot of time, the biggest commodity required for caregivers of an Alzheimer's patient. No, we can't get him to change what he does and just put his dirty undies in a basket. He vehemently denies that he has ever had an accident or that if he, that he would do such a thing as to hide the underwear. That is his reality. Being the queen of underwear inventory is the reality for my bride. That might not be the sunshine, but it is the reality of descent with Alzheimer's disease.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Birthday Boy
Hello, again. It has been quite a while since I have blogged. Mea culpa. Just a brief note before I begin. Someday I will learn how to edit my own bio on the side panel, but until then I will just make a note about changes in it. My bride and I no longer have a child at home. She has graduated and been married. We also now have 4 grandchildren. Does that make us a double 'tween generation. We see our children several times a week and two of our grandchildren also several times a week. (2 of them sadly live too far away.) Our home remains the focal family point for 4 generations. Our youngest son is getting married in 3 months so we will add a new daughter-in-law to the mix. In addition to family my employment status has changed since my last blog. I have taken on a new title at work with the requisite amount of new work to go along with it. I also changed titles as my other job, but that didn't increase the work load but actually gave me a slightly lighter load.
Last week it was Dad's birthday. He was 81 when he came to us. Now he is 84. Reflecting on that is rather overwhelming. We never thought he would even be here 6 months. Then we stretched it to a year. Wow! Time has flown! His memory has failed increasingly in that time. He has forgotten that he has a wife in a nursing home and still plans to marry his new sweetheart at the adult day care center. He has been talking about that now for 7 months but has forgotten that as well. He still tells us that he only met her there a few weeks ago, about 3 or 4 he will say. He still gets angry occasionally about having to go to the center, but his anger dissipates rapidly unlike when he first came and could hang on to it for days on end. His sister, who also suffers from Alzheimer's, is going into a nursing home soon. I suggested that he might like to go there and live with her, but that upset him a lot, so that is on hold for now.
We had a big party for him on his birthday. There were 12 people here staggered out over a period of time so that he wouldn't be too overwhelmed at once. He talked about that for a few days. He kept saying how much he really enjoyed it. Based on recent experience with his memory we didn't know if he would remember it the next morning, but he did, and the day after that as well. He still doesn't know my bride's name, though. Nor does he remember most people's names, family or otherwise. We never know what he will or won't retain from moment to moment. He got a call for his birthday. When I asked how he liked talking to that person, he said, "I had no idea who it was, but it was nice to talk." A friend came by and gave him a card. This friend sees him weekly. We have called this friend by name for 2 years and put his name on the daily activity board whenever he is coming. He looked at the card, just given to him, saw the name and asked, "Who is _____?" For all that he will pick up a conversation he started yesterday and continue it from where he left off. Of course, we have no idea what he is talking about for a while, and by then he has forgotten what he said. If he says something that we can't understand or follow and we ask him what he just said, overwhelmingly he has no idea. But, he remembered the party and he remembered who came. We are just glad that we could create for him a moment of joy that had a little adhesive on the back.
Last week it was Dad's birthday. He was 81 when he came to us. Now he is 84. Reflecting on that is rather overwhelming. We never thought he would even be here 6 months. Then we stretched it to a year. Wow! Time has flown! His memory has failed increasingly in that time. He has forgotten that he has a wife in a nursing home and still plans to marry his new sweetheart at the adult day care center. He has been talking about that now for 7 months but has forgotten that as well. He still tells us that he only met her there a few weeks ago, about 3 or 4 he will say. He still gets angry occasionally about having to go to the center, but his anger dissipates rapidly unlike when he first came and could hang on to it for days on end. His sister, who also suffers from Alzheimer's, is going into a nursing home soon. I suggested that he might like to go there and live with her, but that upset him a lot, so that is on hold for now.
We had a big party for him on his birthday. There were 12 people here staggered out over a period of time so that he wouldn't be too overwhelmed at once. He talked about that for a few days. He kept saying how much he really enjoyed it. Based on recent experience with his memory we didn't know if he would remember it the next morning, but he did, and the day after that as well. He still doesn't know my bride's name, though. Nor does he remember most people's names, family or otherwise. We never know what he will or won't retain from moment to moment. He got a call for his birthday. When I asked how he liked talking to that person, he said, "I had no idea who it was, but it was nice to talk." A friend came by and gave him a card. This friend sees him weekly. We have called this friend by name for 2 years and put his name on the daily activity board whenever he is coming. He looked at the card, just given to him, saw the name and asked, "Who is _____?" For all that he will pick up a conversation he started yesterday and continue it from where he left off. Of course, we have no idea what he is talking about for a while, and by then he has forgotten what he said. If he says something that we can't understand or follow and we ask him what he just said, overwhelmingly he has no idea. But, he remembered the party and he remembered who came. We are just glad that we could create for him a moment of joy that had a little adhesive on the back.
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