Have I already mentioned that I hate dementia? Oh yes, I’m sure I have. It is something that comes pouring out of me quite often.
We had seemed to reach a point that my dad was finally back to trusting me. He had been able to see past the blinding trickery of dementia and delusions. He had once again been able to see that I am trying to help him, not work against him in anyway. He had started perking up when I walked in. He would show signs of feeling relief and hope when we talked, instead of feeling trapped, hopeless, and like everyone was against him. Sure he still had dementia. He still struggled with confusion and misunderstanding many things. But, at least I was able to be around him and it didn’t lead up to conflicting things in his head, which usually led up to him being more difficult with his wife; actually down right mean and fighting his care.
Unfortunately, one thing led to another and sores on his foot and leg become horribly out of control. I will not go into detail, but I will say I was/am furious over how this came about. He ended up having to have two surgeries, resulting in a partial leg amputation. This had to be done even though his over all health situation made him a bad candidate for any type of surgery.
His second surgery was last Friday. Before the surgery he was so sick and there was a serious decline in his mental status. This was very hard to see. But I knew that how sick he had become was playing a major role in it all. When he was released from the hospital, my step-mother, thankfully had him switched to a different nursing home. He is currently in a temporary rehab part.
The days following surgery, I was able to see him regain some ground on his mental status. I started feeling hopeful again. I was able to once again have a reasonable (as well as can be expected) conversation with him Monday. Of course it involved a lot of, once again, going over various things that had occurred with him over the last almost 2 years. But he was able to express that attitude of feeling hopeful and expressed that he knew I was trying to help him. He expressed again, like before becoming sick before surgery, his desire to work with me and try to cooperate with his care.
That same day, I was thrilled because he also stood up for the first time since surgery. Yes, physical therapists had to help him. It was only for a moment and to turn to sit in a wheelchair and then once again to return to bed, but he did it.
With a followup x-ray last night, we found out that he still has some pneumonia. He needed to be put on oxygen this morning. But he still seemed to be doing as well as could be expected. He sat up in his wheelchair again today.
Then………. oh yes, the dementia had to royally rear it’s ugly head this evening!
My phone rings. My step-mother is obviously stressed and I can hear people trying to reason with my dad in the background. Sigh… I’m told he is fighting them, won’t cooperate, and will not put his oxygen on. Next thing I know she is handing the phone to my dad, telling him to talk to me.
Ugh we seem to be back to this:-( He becomes uncooperative and I get called to try to talk him into calming down and do what they need him to do. The problem is when this is done in the middle of him being all worked up and angry and the approach people tend to take is as if they are telling on him to me. In the past this led to him turning on me because he started seeing me as someone trying to tell him what to do. I really hope this is not going to lead to a repeat of how it all went before. It took so long to get him to see past the fog and confusion of the dementia to see that I am not his enemy.
Yes, I was able to get him to get his oxygen back on. He put it on himself. I seemed to have defused the other part of what he was fighting about but I foresee this issue coming back up 🙁
This is all so hard. I believe he is aware that he is confused by a lot of thing. He knows he there are things he doesn’t remember all of the time. But he still does not believe or see that he has dementia. The dementia is at a point that he doesn’t see or understand that everything he does may not be okay or at times, harmful in various ways.
His anger gets so out of control at times. I can understand that some of it comes from the confusion. Some of the anger also comes from frustration of not understanding why he is in a nursing home and why he now can not just get up and do whatever he wants (remember he just had a partial leg amputation Friday). The dementia complicates this anger because it magnifies it and distorts his ability to be reasoned with.
There’s times that I have managed to help him understand things as much as possible. Yet, it is so heart breaking and frustrating to know there is every possibility that without warning, at any minute he will lose everything that I just worked so long and hard to cover with him. But there is no choice. I have to just keep going over everything each time it is needed. All I can do is hope that, even if it is for just a short time, that it will help him feel better.
Things seem to be quiet for the moment.
The moment. . . I have to live moment to moment; hoping that the next moment will be a good one. . .