May 6, 2012 · 1:51 pm

Currency that can’t be cashed

I’ve been all over Atlanta trying to cash in these pieces of foreign currency that Dad had stashed away in one of his many wallets. The bills came in holiday cards from his family in Ireland, who always told him to “have a wee drink on them.” It was a family tradition. When I was a girl, they would include money in my birthday cards. (No, they didn’t tell me to have a wee drink, ha.) Before Dad had dementia, he was prompt about getting the foreign currency cashed.

But once the dementia took over, he would forget to even open the cards his family sent him. His sisters revealed how concerned they had been when my mom called his family to tell them he was in the hospital. They had not been receiving responses back from Dad. In addition to writing, Dad had lost interest in calling them on the phone as the dementia progressed.

My mom asked for me to help out with these last few bills that her local bank could not convert for her. So I went to the branch of my bank in my neighborhood, and they told me I needed to go to another location. I went to a branch in what is known as the “financial center” of town where I work, and they directed me to an American Express office that handled currency conversions. So on my lunch break, I walked down there with this envelope that I’ve been carrying around for months.

The clerk only had to take a momentary glance. “Sorry, those are too old to cash here. If you ever go to Europe, you might be able to get them converted there.”

Well, that’s not happening any time soon, so back the envelope comes with me. I don’t care whether I ever get them cashed or not, it’s just another sad reminder of how dementia robs one of completing simple tasks and simple pleasures, like enjoying a token of love from your family. It’s especially ironic since Dad, like many Alzheimer’s patients, became obsessed with money, always asking about his $20, yet he had a stack of foreign currency long forgotten in his nightstand drawer.

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May 5, 2012 · 2:07 pm

Dad calling Mom “Mommy”

My parents are/were a weird lot. For example, when I was a little girl, my dad would call my mom “Mommy.” This would bring out a jealous rage in me.

“She’s my mommy, not your mommy,” I would pout.

As my parents became seniors, and my dad battled dementia, they fell back into this habit. My mom even referred to Dad as “Daddy” at the hospital, earning some raised eyebrows from the nurses. She defended herself by calling it a term of endearment.

I guess it was to her, especially after taking care of my dad like a child for the past few years. By that point, he was less a husband and more a difficult child who would never grow up.

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May 4, 2012 · 1:19 pm

Having a case of the caregiver’s guilt

I’m reading a great book right now, a collection of essays about the dying process called, “At the End of Life: True Stories About How We Die.” Yes, it’s depressing but there’s also so much in there I can relate to. One particular essay that is haunting me is by a young resident who wrote about the night she lost three patients. One of them was an old man with dementia, who was listed as “full code” despite being in advanced renal failure and suffering from dementia. He had not had any family members visit him. He died with only the hospital staff around him, after they embarked upon an all-out assault on his body to save him in what they knew was a futile but legally necessary procedure.

It seems like there are many elderly patients that die in hospitals without family or friends by their bedside. Sadly, my dad joined this statistic when he passed away.

Certainly this is tragic, though just like when people judge families that put their loved one in a nursing home, there’s more to it beneath the surface.

I remember the first time Dad was near death, and being insulted when the doctor asked if I knew my father was in the hospital. He had been there about 4-5 days by then. My mom had been calling daily, if not twice a day, to get his status, while she was preparing to make the long, difficult trek to the hospital. My mom doesn’t drive and my parents’ car was taken to the junkyard when Dad stopped driving. Mom doesn’t have any nearby relatives or close friends and transportation options are very limited. It would have taken my mom almost 12 hours to get to Albuquerque on the Greyhound bus! So from Ruidoso, NM, she had to find a shuttle service that would take her to Albuquerque, which is over three hours away. My mom had to make sure the bills were paid and everything was in order before leaving home, because she had no idea how long she was going to be in Albuquerque. So understandably, it took a few days for her to get to the hospital.

Dad’s final home, but I have never stepped foot in it.

I had been calling daily, but I was all the way in Atlanta, and was knee-deep in a big work project. Obviously, my dad was much more important than work, but I also knew by then that there could be ups-and-downs in his health. I had been preparing myself for his death over the past year, but it was so hard to know if this was the moment that I needed to be by his bedside. There was also the $1000 last-minute flight price tag to contend with.

I ended up flying out there and it ended up being a false alarm. Still, it was the last time I had the opportunity to see my Dad alive, so I’m glad I made the trip.

But it’s the last month of my dad’s life that’s been gnawing away at me. For all of December 2011, he had not a single visitor at the skilled nursing facility that became his final home. My mom was preparing to visit him over Christmas when he passed away. His dementia was advanced at this point, and he didn’t speak much, but still, I wonder if some part of him yearned for company. By that point, I had already filed for FMLA (though eventually my application was denied.) But I wish now I had taken that time off to go visit Dad. What did I miss out on by not being by my father’s side during the last days of his life? I let finances and work responsibilities rule my decision-making instead of my heart. For once, I should have gone with my heart.

It is a deep regret, knowing that Dad died around strangers, though by that point, I was a stranger to him as well. These are moments and decisions you can never alter. You try to do your best, but ultimately, you have to live with the consequences.

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May 3, 2012 · 1:25 pm

Personal signs on the nursing home door

I’m sure many nursing homes have signs of some sort to identify which resident lives in which room. This was true of the nursing home my Dad lived at the last year of his life. I thought I had taken a photo at some point but I can’t find it. I was struck by the child-like quality the signs had. They identified where the resident was born, then their favorite color, their favorite food, etc. I think it included family information, like how many kids/grandkids they had and I don’t remember what else. The signs reminded me of being in kindergarten, and going through various exercises to get to know your classmates.

I’ve been thinking about those signs lately, as I’m writing a a brief autobiographical blurb for a writing project I’m working on. Trying to figure out the important details to include, and what to kick out, is exhausting.

At some point in our lives, it seems there are so many details that seem crucial for others to know, but at the beginning and the end, it seems to come down to colors and food and family.

Maybe those are the important things after all.

(The thing that bothered me about my dad’s sign is that a lot of the information was incorrect. They got his hometown of Belfast correct, but his favorite color wasn’t blue and spaghetti wasn’t his favorite food, it was fish.)

It was just another way Alzheimer’s chipped away at my Dad’s identity.

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May 2, 2012 · 1:03 pm

Getting lost at the fast food restaurant

I was thinking about my dad’s wandering escapades recently, and remembering the one that took place at McDonald’s. Poor Mom couldn’t even go to the restroom in peace without Dad taking off. The worst thing about that incident was that Mom went looking for him inside and outside the restaurant, and couldn’t find him. So she called the police, which she hated to do but was the right thing in that situation. The police responded and found Dad. He was standing by the drive-thru.

This made me think about an incident that took place when I was a kid, probably when I was in junior high. It was our traditional weekend trek to a fast food restaurant. This time it was Arby’s. I loved the curly fries and the Jamocha shake, but could take or leave the sandwich. Well, I liked the Horsey sauce, or maybe it was the name that I liked saying more than anything. Anyways, we were done with our meal and Mom and I headed to the restroom while Dad headed out to smoke. We had done this same scenario a hundred times before.

The scene of Dad's "lost and found" experience when he had dementia.

By the time Mom and I would be finished, Dad would be done with his smoke and in the car waiting for us. But not this time.

Dad was definitely not in the car and it was still locked. I walked around the building and looked for him, but no signs of Dad. Maybe the bathroom? Dad was known for his stomach troubles, which could come on suddenly, so we decided to give him a bit of time. The minutes ticked by slowly as we waited by the car. (Long before the days of smartphones, where you could kill time by playing a round or two of Angry Birds!) At least 10-15 minutes passed, and no sign of Dad. Mom started to get worried so we went back inside the restaurant and asked a male employee if they could check the men’s bathroom for us. They did, but no sign of Dad.

Dad wasn’t a likely kidnapping target, but we were starting to run out of ideas. Finally, as if by magic, Dad appeared, walking over from the tire store next door. Why in the world he had a sudden, urgent desire to look at tires I’ll never know. Mom scolded him for making us worry but he just shrugged it off.

I don’t remember this happening again until Dad started showing signs of dementia. It was just a strange, momentary glimpse of what was to come.

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May 1, 2012 · 11:54 am

Nursing home musings

If you haven’t read Ted Sutton’s heartbreaking, beautiful story about his mother on Huffington Post, entitled “Final Curtain: A Mother’s Day Love Story”, you should, but make sure to have the tissues handy.

There are several points in his piece that I’m sure most of us that have dealt with Alzheimer’s or dementia in our family can relate to. For example, I related to the difficulty of finding your loved one at the nursing home. So often, residents end up being dressed in clothes that are not their own, and so often many are heavily medicated and slumped over in chairs. On my visits, I could usually find Dad because he was ambling about instead of just sitting down like most of the residents. This of course was good and bad, because while it was good he was ambulatory his unsteady gait led to several falls. Sutton’s piece touches upon this sad reality as well.

The last photograph of dad and I together, July 2011, just before he attempted to sing "Happy Birthday" to me.

The difficult of phone communication with Alzheimer’s patients also struck a chord with me. This was so true with my father. I hated calling the nursing home and trying to talk to him because it seemed like a difficult task for him and that he didn’t enjoy it. My mom insisted on calling him almost every night, which was more for her well-being than his, though I do hope the sound of a familiar voice gave him some comfort. But my mom would often comment that she would “lose connection” with Dad, as he would drop the phone and wander off, or just forget that he was supposed to talk into the receiver.

And the touching part where Sutton sings with his mother is absolutely beautiful. It makes me think of my father’s last pitiful attempt at singing “Happy Birthday” to me, and how he was barely awake as he moved his lips along with my mom, who tried to fill in for him. My parents would always make a big production out of singing “Happy Birthday” to me over the phone, since as an adult, I never had the chance to spend my birthday with them.

So thanks to Ted Sutton for sharing such an amazing, heart-wrenching, and beautifully-written piece with the world. I’m sure it will resonate loudly with many caregivers throughout the world. Sutton is also working on a book about his mother. I can’t wait to read it.

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April 30, 2012 · 12:43 pm

Dad reunited with his mother

My aunt told my mother that the family took part of Dad’s ashes and scattered them on their mother’s grave in Ireland. And then, being good Catholics, sprinkled the ground with holy water. So my Dad is reunited with his beloved mother at long last.

I don’t know if a photo exists of my grandmother, Catherine, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen one. I did see a photo of my grandfather, Joseph, on his mass card. I know little about either of my grandparents on my dad’s side of the family. My dad spoke highly of his mother, he obviously loved her dearly and always said how sweet and hard-working she was. He had very little to say about his father. From what I have gathered, his father would be away from home a lot working, so he did not bond with his children the way Catherine did.

Who knows which came first, but Dad was more of the sensitive type, the young man who loved to read and write, not the kind who liked to engage in “manly” pastimes like working with tools. So he naturally gravitated towards his mother, and it probably helped that he had multiple sisters but only one brother. So the family was dominated by women.

I think it turned out to be a good thing, and I guess it turned out right that I was a girl. Dad always was very respectful of women, having been raised “right” by so many women back home.

I’m glad he is reunited with his mother at long last, if only symbolically. I know it is what he would have wanted.

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April 29, 2012 · 12:59 pm

A not-so-magical search for “David Copperfield”

Parents do a lot of mundane tasks for their kids. They haul them around to various team sport outings and other extra-curricular activities. I had no interest in such things, so my parents got off easy most of the time.

Until we embarked upon a search for “David Copperfield.” (The book, not the magician. He probably would have been easier to find.)

I was a slightly above-average student in school, and was enrolled in an honors reading class. I believe I was in 5th grade at the time. “David Copperfield” was the next book on our reading list and I had to procure a copy that weekend to bring to class on Monday.

So how hard can it be to find a copy of a classic novel by Charles Dickens in a large suburban area of California? This was back in the mid-1980’s, when bricks-and-mortar bookstores were bountiful and Amazon was just a river. We set out at a leisurely pace on a Sunday afternoon, heading to the nearest mall.

We stopped in at Walden’s bookstore. Nope, sold the last copy yesterday. We went to the next bookstore and they were on back-order. We asked where the nearest bookstore was from there and headed back to the car in defeat.

It seemed every damn student in my town was reading this book, and had been smarter than I and bought it earlier.

So we went to the next bookstore down the street, and then to another mall, and by then, Dad was grumbling about the gas he was wasting. When he wasn’t complaining about the cost, he was talking about his memories of the book and other Charles Dickens novels. His enthusiasm and knowledge of the works made me know I was going to hate reading this book, if I ever got my hands on it.

The sun was setting and we still had not found a copy. The next day at school, the teacher found an extra copy that I was allowed to “borrow” for class until I finally got my hands on a copy of my own at some point that week. And guess what, I hated every word of it. In fact, it was one of the first books I faked reading just to get through the book report assignment.

To this day, I still have no interest in reading “David Copperfield” or any other work by Charles Dickens, for that matter. Sorry, Dad.

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April 28, 2012 · 1:29 pm

The hair soup special

My parents were not gourmet foodies. As I’ve mentioned before, most of our restaurant outings consisted of fast food. But occasionally my parents would opt for something different. On this particular outing, we regretted our decision, but it became a big family joke for years to come.

Mom had unearthed a coupon from somewhere for a restaurant that we had not been to yet near the shopping mall. Dad could never pass up a good deal, so off we went on a Sunday afternoon. We did a bit of shopping and then it was time for dinner. (Which was around 5 p.m.. Even when my parents were younger they ate dinner at the “old folks” hour.

Spires was the name of the restaurant. It was a nondescript diner-style restaurant, but the building that housed the restaurant was memorable because it was an odd hexagon-shape. In fact, the building still exists, and a Persian restaurant is currently in the spot.

I remember little about the interior of the restaurant or what Dad and I ordered. That’s because what Mom chose off the menu became the focus of our meal. Mom ordered soup, which was a bit unusual for her. I have no memory of what kind of soup, because there was only one ingredient bobbing in the broth that was delivered to our table that mattered.

A long, dark strand of hair.

Unfortunately for my mom, she didn’t discover this “special ingredient” until she had a spoonful of soup in her mouth. At first she thought it was a celery string. Then she pulled it out with her fingers, and discovered the hairy truth.

What was worse was that our waitress had red hair, so it wasn’t as if the hair had just fallen into the soup as the waitress delivered it to our table, which would perhaps have been a little easier to accept.

Our spoons and forks went down. Suddenly, none of us was hungry anymore. A manager was alerted and of course he comped our meal.

We never ate at Spires again. But every time we drove by the iconic building, Dad would jokingly ask my mom, “Are you sure you don’t want to stop in for some hair soup?”

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April 27, 2012 · 1:15 pm

Day trips to Del Mar

My mom recently met a man on the shuttle that she rides that said he worked for 30 years at Del Mar. My mom’s interest was piqued, because we spent many a family outing there over the years.

We would take the train to the Del Mar Racetrack. The track’s slogan is, “Where the turf meets the surf” and it probably is one of the more picturesque race tracks in the country. The train ride offered inviting glimpses of the Pacific Ocean. It was a little over an hour-and-a-half away but as a kid, it felt like a real getaway, probably because the ocean scenery was in great contrast to the bland suburbia I grew up in.

All I remember about the actual track was that it was pretty, as horse race tracks go. I have snapshots in my mind of some interesting architecture that could be found on the grounds, and I seem to remember towering arches. For whatever reason, I also remember after the races, when the buses would all be gearing up to go, and the sun would be slowly setting. It was funny how patrons would be loud and boisterous on their way to the track, but on the way back, you could easily tell who had won and who had lost. (As well as who had too many beers in the hot sun.)

I poked around for some Del Mar track history, and now I know why Dad liked the track so much: Bing Crosby greeted the first patrons when the track opened back in 1937! Also, I had forgotten about Trevor Denman, charismatic racetrack announcer. He started at Del Mar in 1984, when I would have been 10 years old. We watched many a race that he began with his trademark, “And away they go!” Dad liked him because he thought he was Australian, and he had a sister that lived there, but Denman was actually from South Africa.

But the main thing I remember about these Del Mar trips was the candy. That’s right, a mysterious candy from Asia that had a clear wrapper that you could eat! Well, at least that’s what my mom said. I was probably 5 or 6 at the time but old enough to suspect she might be playing a joke on me. I went to Dad, who was busy looking over the horses in the paper, plotting out his strategy for race day. “Daddy, Mommy says I can eat the wrapper. Is that true?”

Dad barely glanced my way. “If that’s what Mommy says.” Gee, big help Dad. He also declined my offer to try one.

Finally, I tried them and sure enough, the wrapper melted in my mouth, giving away to a slightly fruity, chewy candy underneath. It became a Del Mar trip tradition, a sweet bonus to our family excursion.

(And of course, I researched the candy as well. It’s called Botan and it still exists, in the same packaging that I remember as a kid!)

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