More Sads and Confusions

I should mention that I'm grateful for all the recommendations from readers/friends/family.  They are all good, but all situations and personalities are different so some fit with Dad and I better than others.  For example, respite care is suggested often, and I don't really need respite care yet.  I will one day, but I can get away for a couple of hours at a time now because Dad can take care of himself for hours at a time.  I can go grocery shopping, work on the computer, or spend time out in the yard without much problem.  So I'm not desperate for small amounts of time "off" yet.

The meal preparation, laundry, and cleaning is not a problem either.  I like to cook and have always spent time on it for myself.  Cooking for two is not much extra work.  Although I will say that preparing meals on a set schedule is new to me (and annoying).  I've always been an "eat when hungry" person, plus its never bothered me to skip a meal when I was busy.  With Dad, I MUST make lunch at noon and dinner at 6.  That part's hard, but not something I'm willing to hand off to a professional.

Perhaps the best routine gain Dad has from living here is the food.  When I picked up Dad in FL in May, I discovered he was living on hot dogs, frozen fish and ice cream.  Now he has a healthy cereal for breakfast (his effort not mine), a sandwich of home-made bread, some meat, lettuce, and onions, with sliced tomato, carrot sticks, radish, and a pickle on the side.  Dinner is some few ounces of fresh meat with lots of veggies over rice or spaghetti, tossed salad, green veggie, and potato or corn.  He wants sweet stuff for dessert (and gets some) but I get a lot of fresh fruit into him too.

Cleaning is different.  As a bachelor, I don't clean like my mother did.  But from seeing Dad's place in FL, I clean a bit more than he did.  I watched him clean a table once and some dishes once, and there is no way I will let him do that again.  If he cleans something, I thank him and then clean it properly later when he isn't paying attention.  The weird thing is that I would clean MORE often, but he wants to "help" and that is worse than doing it myself.

Laundry is not much more than just for me.  Like many old folks, Dad wears the same clothes too long.  Well, its not like he works up a sweat sitting in a chair watching TV all day, but I image that dead skin cells add up.  I change outfits every day; Dad would wear them for a week.  Its not TOO hard to remind him that he wore "those clothes" for 3 days.  I do my own laundry often enough that I can "offer" to do his at the same time.

Memory-Fail example:  EVERY time I mention laundry, Dad wants to accompany me down to the basement to see how the washer and dryer work.  He never recalls that he has done that every week for 5 months...  Sometimes I get off easy when he allows me to "just wash his".  There is a reason his laundry hamper is in the main bathroom.  So I can see that it gets fuller and when he has run out of clean underwear...

And I should admit right out that I don't have Dad here because I am lonely (as Dad [and some friends] sometimes imagines).  I LOVED living alone (with the cats of course).  And I look forward to living alone again some day.  I understand that it won't be this year.  It may not be next year (but that will be stretching my perseverance thin).  Dad is here because I was told he could no longer live on his own, The day poop dribbles out the bottom of his pants and he doesn't notice, he will discover assisted living facilities.  I am many things, but I am not a bodily nurse.  I don't have the stomach for it.  If I see a kid throw up on TV, I throw up.  There are things I can do and things I can't.  Its all I can do to flush the toilet when Dad forgets to (which is always now).

I'm doing this because it is required, I am the best child to live with at this specific time, and I don't know how to get out of it.

I get Dad now because my sister Susan and I agreed years ago that she would take Mom and I would take Dad if one or the other needed elder care.  Sexism makes sense sometimes.  50/50 chance, and I lose.  Thats normal for me.

No, the new stuff I intended to write about was about Dad's mental lapses.  The above was just all an  indroduction to why the physical stuff wasn't that important but the mental stuff was.

As Arlo Guthrie said, "Ive gone on for 20 minutes, I can go on for another 20 minutes.  I'm not proud.  OR tired."  Or something like that...

Today Dad forgot how to count money.  I saw him take cash out of his wallet, and he started writing down numbers on post-it sheets.  I knew what he was trying to find out.  How much cash he had.

It deeply saddens me that he could not add OR count.  He tried counting directly and came up with different numbers.  He tried listing the amounts of the individual bills.  He kept coming up with different numbers.

I like it when Dad gets obsessed with things because it keeps him harmlessly occupied.  Watching golf, listening to silly Fox News, reading the new privacy documents from his credit card company, deciding what to do with the address labels that all charity groups send.  When he gives up, I explain them in simple words and trash them (well, I save the address labels; he likes those).

But back to the money-counting.  Dad can't count money annynore.  He confuses the denomination with the quantity of them.  He wrote down 10 lists of bills.  Every one was wrong.  The specific falure is that he writes $20 no matter how many of the 20s there are.  He can count the other bills right.

My frustration is when he can't THINK straight.  Thats what drives me crazy.  I cant blame him, but it still makes things so hard for me.

Dad was always factually-oriented.  So am I.  But he is losing it SO badly and SO fast.

We were watching a show about dinosaurs after dinner.  He said (as he so often does lately)  "they don't know the size of those reptiles.  They could be ten times or one tenth that size".  I mentioned that "they" have the bones.  Dad said "yeah, but they still can't tell"!  He dismisses everything that he does not know for sure himself..  OK, he ALWAYS has, but he's getting WORSE.

He confuses me.  When I said "but they have the bones", he didn't care.  The fact had no importance to him.  He has lost all analysis ability.   And THAT'S what is hardest for me to deal with.  The loss of mental existence.

He exists physically, he can walk (and better with the cane we bought last week).  But his mind is going, and that is the part I am struggling with.

He thought Sarah Palin was in the vice presidential debates this year.  When I said she was 4 years ago he said I was "all wet".  He thought Reagan was president.  Then he thought McCain lost, but not Palin as VP.  Then he decided he wasn't sure who McCain's VP was.  Maybe Romney.

Anything I say is wrong.  I should ignore that but I can't.  My whole life has been factually oriented.

Time to start ignoring everything Dad says, isn't it?  But how?  I need to talk to him because he talks to me.  I don't know how to ignore him.