Yesterday, I had a bit of a humorous experience.
My husband told me that he found a message from my dad on the answering machine. I took a breath, not knowing what to expect.
He has left many different types of messages since his stroke & since the dementia got worse. There have been garbled messages that could not be made out. Some messages have been down right mean & nasty with accusations toward my husband or his wife. Sadly there has been a couple of messages that insinuated he was going to do something not good. While some messages have been telling some wild version of what he thought he was doing or some place he thought he was at. There have been some that made it obvious he was just sad or upset & needed to talk. Then, there are the flash back to the times before dementia, where he was just making a friendly call to see if I was home & could talk.
After taking the breath & bracing myself, I asked my husband what the message was. He told me that the only part he could make out was something about 10 miles. 10 miles? Hmm, okay so I knew I better check the message because that could mean just about anything.
I played the message. I could clearly make out these things: “On this bike”, “haven’t got anyplace”, “gone about 10 miles”, & “going to make me go more”
Okay, so just taking those pieces, first thought could be he is really having an episode. At first it could be taken as he thinks he is riding a bike, has gone about 10 miles & is going to ride farther. He can not physically ride a bike. The nursing home does not have a bike & I would hope they wouldn’t let him wander off anyway. It is bitter cold & there is a bunch of snow outside. So I KNEW he was not really out some where riding a bicycle for 10 miles. Hey, with dementia you never know what he may be thinking though.
I played the message again & listened extra close. I needed to figure out if he was caught in an episode.
After listening closer, I had to laugh about the whole situation! I could hear nursing home employees in the background. I made out what he was saying a bit better. He was telling me that they had him on a bike. He was saying that even though they had made him ride about 10 mile, he hadn’t gotten any place & they were making him ride more.
I looked at my husband & explained it. My dad was riding a stationary bike in physical therapy. He was making a joke about how much they have made him do on it & that they were still wanting him to do more.
Okay, I’m still laughing about this. What was easily made out at first could have indicated he was having quite a spell. See how it is when you live this life? You always have to be prepared for something that could be “way out there”. You never really know. You learn to never be surprised by the things someone with dementia may truly believe in the moment. This time it simply came down to my dad’s sense of humor 🙂
That was truly a nice change of pace!