Babies and Family

Usually, Dad knows who I am, and he often knows my husband. But the other day, he was very confused about our stage in life. He was saying that I had "snuck around behind his back and gotten pregnant some how." (We've been married more than 29 years.) And now "there is a baby walking around the house. That is true of it." "I didn't know white babies could walk like that." (What did he expect, that they fly?)

Another time Dad said, "My daughter married a banker. That is true of her." (My husband is a network manager at a university.) "Her husband makes good money so she can afford to stay home and take care of me. That is true of them." (I've worked full time since 1986 and part time before that.)

Napkins

Dad has a funny view of the purpose of napkins. Unlike the rest of us, he does not put them in his lap, except at restaurants. Nor are they used for wiping his face unless he is specifically prompted and coached. No, the role of a napkin is to blow your nose on it at the end of every meal. Sometimes they are for spitting into also. Then, after his nose has been blown on it, the napkin can be used for wiping up the many things dropped on the table around his plate. Needless to say, I pick up all napkins with the greatest of caution.


Update: Mom has trained Dad to put his napkins in a plastic grocery bag that hangs on the back of my chair. It's kind of gross to have that right behind me while I eat, but it is better than picking them up. We change the bags frequently.

Getting Dressed

Dad's ability to dress himself is spotty. He can't put on his diaper because of the tape tabs. (The pull-up adult diapers have to be changed WAY too often, and it's not worth the battle.) He can't put on his own socks and shoes because his feet are seriously swollen, and he doesn't have the strength to pull hard enough. He can handle buttons and snaps if you wait long enough. He never figured out that you could fasten the back of the suspenders, put on the pants, and pull the suspenders over your shoulder. So, my husband helps him dress/undress most days.

Gathering everything that is needed to dress Dad takes time. Sometimes Dad ends up sitting for just a few seconds without any clothes on, which he DOES NOT like. One night when my husband had to get the cream to dress his bedsores from the other room, Dad complained, "I am a naked man. I am a very naked man. That is true of me." This morning while my husband was helping him dry off from his shower he said, "I'm as naked as a jay bird. That is true of me." (What does he expect, to take his shower with his clothes on?)

Strange Night

Dad was in a strange mood yesterday. It was eat-out night, and he loves eating out. Eating is one of his major hobbies. Or maybe his only hobby. Anyway Mom had dressed him in his special eat-out clothes--clothes with no stains or food stuck to them. This is usually his signal that it is eat-out night. Most of the time, he is waiting eargerly for us to come home so we can go eat. I have even found him waiting at the door for me to come. However, last night when I turned off his TV and told him it was time to go he said, "Go where?" I explained that we were going to eat out. He responded, "Why?" I explained that he had to come if he wanted to eat dinner.

Once we got to the restaurant, he immediately pulled out his billfold and asked us to find the credit card he needed to pay with. We found it for him and he took it out and set it on the table like he was ready to pay. Even before we ordered! This is more evidence that he doesn't have normal sensations of hungry and full. When he eats out, he orders one thing and one thing only--chicken fried steak. Some nights he orders for himself, but last night he didn't even acknowledge the waitress. We cut his food for him because 1) his Parkinson's keeps him from gripping the knife and bearing down and 2) even when he could cut his food, he cut it into giant pieces. He would stuff a huge piece in his mouth, chew only once or twice (he doesn't like chewing) and try to wash it down with tea. Needless to say, he choked a lot. His response to choking was to stuff more food and drink into his mouth while he was still coughing. Not a pretty sight. Since we've been cutting his food into reasonable sizes, most of the choking has stopped.

Last night, this worked against us. Instead of eating the reasonable size pieces of meat, he tried to chase the tiny bits of crust with his fork around his plate. In an effort to get us out of the restaurant before midnight, my husband got a second fork, loaded it with a reasonable amount of food, and handed it to him. Dad finished his meal trading off forks.

Leaving the restaurant, Dad tried to get into every car we passed. I drive a small, red car. He usually only tries to get in to red cars, but last night he didn't care. He just wanted to get into the CLOSEST car so he didn't have to walk any further.

Then, in the night, he woke up at 1:00 and got into the shower. We don't know why he felt the need to shower in the middle of the night. Fortunately (I guess) we slept through it, but poor Mom didn't.

Sigh

Birds

Mom has been an avid birder (not bird watcher) most of her adult life. Later in life, Dad attempted to bird with her in an effort to share an interest . However, he was not willing to walk the miles though unpleasant brush to really engage in serious birding. His efforts evolved to watching the birds in the feeder in the back yard--as long as someone else filled the feeder. Mom used to fill feeders until she got too frail and unstable to walk on uneven ground.

When we moved Mom and Dad in, we brought over there birdfeeders. In addition to ours, we have a forest of feeders. However, between our busy schedules and the very wet spring we had, we haven't been really faithful in keeping them full. Here's Dad's response one day when he was feeling poor (see yesterday's entry).

"The birds are fussing because they are hungry. There is no food in their feeder. That is true of it." "We don't have any birdseed because we don't have enough money to buy any. That is true of us." "My wife will be angry at me for not feeding the birds, but I can't feed the birds because I am too poor to buy the birdseed. That is true of me." "If my wife gets mad at me, she might not feed me. And I *like* to eat. That is true of me." "If my wife won't feed me, I'll be hungry. Then I'll be in a pickle."

Money

Dad used to be very good with money matters. His company did profit sharing rather than having a retirement plan. This worked out very well for my parents. First, because his company, which had been in business more than 60 years, went bankrupt shortly after Dad retire. Second, Dad invested this profit sharing very well.

However, for the last several years, Dad has been very confused about money matters. I took over bill paying when Dad paid the utility company using a check from a closed bank account and couldn't understand why they wouldn't let him pay with another check. During his "mean" stage of Alzheimer’s, he accused me (and others) of stealing from him and threatened to call the police. Now, he vacillates between thinking he is very poor and very rich. Examples:

"We only have my social security to live on. My wife never worked. That is true of us." (Mom worked as a school nurse for more than 20 years.) "We don't even have enough money to buy our food. That is true of us." "It is so cold in the house (78 degrees) because we don't have enough money to pay to turn on the heat (in July in Texas)."

"We have more than a million dollars (not true). I invested in the stock market very well (true). That is true of us." "We owned land in downtown Dallas, but we sold it when it became worth a lot of money. Then we went to live in Oak Cliff. That was true of us." (This might be something of a childhood memory. He did live in Oak Cliff a couple of times as a boy and then again as a young man.) "We made a lot of money off our land in downtown Dallas." (He also may be confusing the money he made from his aunt's estate. She owned a lot of land in downtown Houston. However, it was split among so many nieces and nephews that no one got a huge amount.)

He asks me regularly if he pays income tax. Even when I show him his finacial records, he immediately swings between believing he is rich or he is poor.

Hawaii

I think Dad has something for territories that became states during his life time. First, he talked all evening about Alaska and the last of the Romanovs (see July 9). Then, this weekend he talked all day about Hawaii. What was different about this series is that Dad rocked back and forth in his chair--like a person with Autism would.

"Hawaii was important during World War II. A lot of our soldiers were stationed there. That's what they did." "They were stationed there as a base to fight the Japanese. That was true of them."

"Because all the soldiers were there, the people of Hawaii learned to speak English. That was true of them." "Now they teach English in the schools. The Hawaiians even speak English in their homes. That is true of them."

"Since everyone there now speaks English, I don't know why they don't let Hawaii become a state." "Alaska became a state. That is true of them." "So they ought to let Hawaii become a state."

"If they let Hawaii become a state, I would like to visit it. I hear Hawaii is beautiful. That is true of it." (Note, Dad has been to Hawaii.)

Population

Dad has his own view of population and population controls. His statements weren't in this order. I'm grouping them to make more sense. Each statement was made over and over, always in a different order.

"Europe was very populated. That's why Europeans came to America. That was true of them." "Now European population is stable. It isn't growing. Everyone in Europe has 2 kids to reproduce themselves. That is true of them."

"Once America was not very populated. People had lots of kids to fill up America. That was true of them." "My grandparents had lots of kids. Big Mama and Little Papa had 12 kids. That was true of them." "They wanted a lot of kids to help on the farm. People who lived in the city did not have as many kids. That was true of them." "Little Papa lived on the farm until he grew old. Then he sold the farm and lived with my mother because he didn't have social security. That was true of him." "Then he lived with my aunt in Arizona. He had a dozen kids so he could live with them when he grew old since he didn't have social security. That was true of him."

"My other grandparents had seven children. Then America got more populated. My parents had 3 kids. That was true of them."

"America is too populated, that's why people can't have more than 2 kids. Everyone wants to reproduce themselves, so they have 2 kids. Some people can't have any kids, that's why other people can have 3 kids. That's why my parents had 3 kids. That was true of them."

"My brother had 2 kids, a boy and a girl. I had 2 kids, a boy and a girl. Then we stopped having kids. We declined to have any more kids. That was true of us." "Everyone wants 2 kids, a boy and a girl. But some people can't have any kids, that's why some people can have 3 kids."

And on, and on, and on...

Food

I don't know if it is the Alzheimer's, or if it is just Dad, but I don't think he has sensations of hungry or full any longer. He eats what ever is set in front of him, accepting seconds only on milk whenever seconds are offered. If his plate is overflowing, he polishes it off. If he only has small portions, he turns down more. We need to be careful about portion sizes and balance to keep his weight from exploding.

A down side of this is that he forgets that he has eaten. Sometimes within a half hour of eating, I'll find him back at the table waiting for food. Mother has started leaving his ice cream (sugarless) stick at his place at lunch so she can prove to him he has eaten. When we tell him that he just had a meal and what he ate, he complains bitterly that we are starving him to death and won't let him have anything. All punctuated by "that is true of me".

A Love Story

Like many of Dad's stories, his story yesterday about his courtship of Mother was part fact and part fiction.

The facts: Mom and Dad met in the late 1940s at SMU's Dallas College, a night school for all the post-war students. Mother was head nurse for pediatrics at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Parkland had already sent her for a year's training at Johns Hopkins to set up the first nursery for premature babies in Texas. Parkland was moving toward consolidating their nursing school with Texas State College for Women and needed mother to have a teaching degree so she could be a nursing instructor. She was going to Dallas College to take care of some prerequisites before Parkland sent her to Columbia Teachers' College. Both of her parents were alive and living in East Texas. Her father died in 1955 and her mother died in 1972.

Dad was able to return from World War II to the same job he held before the war. He was living with his parents had limited ambition. The only reason he had a job at all was that his mother had threatened to kick him out of the house if he "didn't put down his books and get a job." He went to Dallas College on the GI Bill at the urging of his boss. Both of his parents were alive. His mother was slightly older than his father. They died 2 weeks apart during the winter of 1964-1965.

Dad is seven years older than Mom. He made a big deal of Mom's father being 7 years older than her mother and Mom's brother-in-law being 7 years older than her sister. He would tease me that my husband was too young since he is only 4 years older than I am.

Dad's Version--only his viewpoint, repeated 20 times:

“I met my wife at Dallas College. We were both working during the day and going to school at night. That was true of us."

"She was living with her mother in Dallas. Her father was dead. Her mother had been a widow for a long time. That was true of her."

"I never met her father. He was dead by the time I met her. That was true of me." (My grandfather lived with them during the week in Dallas and went home to East Texas on the weekends for the first several years of their marriage.)

"Her mother wanted her to get an education, but she couldn't afford it since she was a widow. That was true of her."

"We met in class at night school. She was only a couple of years younger than I was. She still is only a couple of years younger than I am. That is true of us."

"I am 86 years old and my wife is in her 80s. That is true of me."

"When she met me, she fell in love with me, and I fell in love with her. That was true of us."

Well, at least some if it was right...

2 + 2 = 7

Today was Dad's day for taking pieces of his personal history, scrambling it, and coming out with pure fiction.

Reality: Dad was stationed in England in World War II. He traveled to and from England on the Queen Elizabeth. He never set foot on continental Europe. In later life, the only time he left the US (except for Mexico and Canada) was a brief trip to the European continent while I was in college. Mom was not interested in traveling with him, so she stayed home--in Dallas.

His version:

"I went on a tour around the world. That's what I wanted to do, so that's what I did. That was true of me."

"I went on a boat around the world. We went to Burma and India. That was true of me."

"My wife did not want to go on the boat around the world, so she stayed with her sister in New York for a visit. That was true of her. She loved her sister very much and wanted to visit with her."

"Our boat stopped and visited ports all around the world. That was true of us."

"My children stayed with their aunt in New York. That was true of them."

He also told a fractured story about meeting Mom. What was the most interesting was not what he said (right and wrong) but the way he shifted points of view. First he told the story from his own viewpoint, in a general way with no audience in particular. Then he told it as if he were Mom speaking to my brother and me. He called himself "my husband". Finally, he told the same story from his mother's viewpoint as if she were speaking to Mom. He called himself "my son".

Very strange...

More History

Background information: Secretary of State Seward bought Alaska from Russia in 1867, 50 years before Dad was born. It became a state when Dad was 42.

"I am 86 years old. I was once a member of the legislature of the state of Alaska."
(note--Dad has never lived outside of Texas)

"When America finally made Alaska a state, I got elected as Governor. That was true of me."

"I was a member of the House of Romanov. I was one of the last of the Romanovs. That's what I did."

"I learned to speak English back then, but I spoke with an English accent. In Russia, they teach you to speak English at an early age so you won't have a Russian accent. That is true of me."

"I was glad to be a member of the state of Alaska. Alaska was too far away for the Emperor to rule from Moscow. So he sold it to the United States. That's what we did."

"The Czar sold Alaska to America. Now it is the biggest state, bigger than Texas."

"When Alaska was sold to the US, I became an American citizen. That is true of me."

"After I became a US citizen, I was elected to the legislature of the state of Alaska. Then I was elected governor. That was true me."

This went on for about 2 hours. When my husband was putting Dad to bed, he asked Dad what his last name was. Dad answered correctly, thought a minute, then told my husband, "You must be the member of the House of Romanov."

Five minutes later, Dad forgot this conversation and went back to being the last of the Romanovs.

Eating Out and Mangled History

Mom and Dad have eaten out one day a week since she went back to work full time in 1967. It's almost the eleventh Commandment to them. When they moved to our town nine years ago, they included my family in the weekly ritual. The night has varied some, but most of the time we eat out on Thursday. Tonight when I told Dad it was time to go, he observed, "We go out to eat. All of us go out to eat. It's true of us." He has been so sedentary that his muscles have atrophied. When he was struggling to get out of his chair he commented, "If I can't stand up, I can't go out to eat."

Alzheimer’s has given Dad the mind of a steel trap. Everything comes out mangled. He remembers bits and pieces of history and makes up the rest. One of his favorite topics is the creation of Isreal as a Jewish homeland in 1948. He calls the country Palestine--consistently pronouncing it Pal es TEEN. I've never figured out why the Jews would want to make their homeland in a small East Texas town.

His pronouncements:

"The Jews have all emigrated to Palestine. There are only a few old Jews left in the United States."

"Palestine is now a Jewish state. They kicked all the Mohammedans out."

"Jews believe in the Old Testament, not the New Testament. Jews are not Christians because they never accepted Christ."

"The British used to control Palestine, but so many Jews came that the British left."

"There used to be quite a few Jews in America, but most of the young ones have moved to Palestine. When the old ones that are left die off, there won't be any Jews in America."

This went on for at least half an hour. This is a common theme. Sometimes he is a Jewish settler in PalesTEEN, but last night he was a third party observer. Over and over and over and over--this and more like it. You have to have a sense of humor or you'll go crazy.

Dad's Observations on Life

Dad must have been extra hungry tonight because he was sitting at his place at the table when I came home just after 5:00. He was saying, "It's time to eat. Maybe someone will feed me. I don't want to starve to death. They won't make me starve to death." So, I explained to him that it would take a little while to prepare dinner. I talked him back into his chair in the family room.

A few minutes later though he was back at the table. He started making several observations about life:

"I'm old. Every day I get a day older. That's true of me."

"I like to have support for my back. When I don't have support for my back, it gets tired. What's true for my back is true of me."

"I'm sitting on my rear end. I'm getting tired of sitting on my rear end. That's true of me." (note--he doesn't do anything else--ever_

About dinner preparations: "When she is ready, she'll be ready. That's true of her."

About the dog: "She can't have puppies. She wants to have puppies, but she doesn't know she can't have puppies. That's true of her."

Each one of these declarations were made at least ten times.

Ah, accompaniment to cook by. You have to laugh.

Dogs

Dad punctuates his sentences with a definitive "that's it" --as if he had the final word to say on any subject. I guess it is a hold over from his years of writing legal opinions.

When I was a child, we always had dogs. However, they were always outside dogs--snow, rain, 100 degree heat--they stayed outside. Since I've been married, my dogs have been inside dogs. This has been one of the adjustment for my parents when they moved in with us. It has also been an adjustment for the dog, Suzy. She is afraid of Mother's walker, but she loves sitting under Dad's chair at meals to eat any of the things he spills. My husband calls it Suzy's feeding station. If Dad is at the table, Suzy is right next to him. Other than that, they pretty much ignore each other.

One night after Dad went to bed, he must have made some unusual noise. He likes to sleep with his door half open to "get air". Suzy walked to the door to see what the noise was about. Dad saw her at the door and started talking to her. He said, "You're a dog, and you're always going to be a dog. And that's it. And your mother was a dog, and she'll always be a dog. And that's it." "You don't like me very much, but that's OK. I don't like you very much. And that's it." All of this with an up talk that can quickly drive you mad. Even after Suzy got bored and wandered off, he kept repeating this, over and over and over and over. He must have talked about Suzy always being a dog for at least 20 minutes.

You just have to laugh.

Introduction

Living with a parent with Alzheimer’s is never easy. Nancy Reagan accurately called it "the long good-bye." When the person with
Alzheimer’s is a parent, there is a special challenge--the parent becomes the child, and the child assumes the role of parent. It is a delicate balancing act that changes on a daily basis. Each person assuming the role of care-giver has to find a way to cope. My coping mechanism is to laugh--to find humor where ever it can be found. It's not that I don't respect my father or grieve over his lost past. But I have to laugh to keep from crying. Maybe by sharing the humor I find, I can help others to cope also.

Not only does Dad have Alzheimer’s, he also has macular degeneration and is legally blind. An avid reader all of his life, he tries to continue by "reading" the headlines of the newspaper, titles of magazine article, and text from TV ads. This morning, the newpaper carried the story about a hostage in Iraq being beheaded. In a very serious tone, Dad noted the event and gave what he thought was a profound insight, "It's a bad thing that happened in Iraq. It's kind of hard to live without a head."