October 11, 2012 · 6:52 pm

Dad’s love of words

I’ve written many times before about Dad’s love of books. But he also was fond of speeches. As a great lover of history, he followed politics fairly closely, even if he was often disgusted by the actions of certain politicians. Tonight is the vice presidential debate and one of my earlier exposures to politics was watching the Reagan-Mondale debate on TV with Dad. I would have been 10 at the time, just old enough to think I should have opinion. As it turns out, the only opinion I had was one of sheer boredom.

But Dad watched the debate with great interest and sounded off with distaste when he heard something he disagreed with. As I’ve mentioned before, Dad was a Democrat but I think he had a certain begrudging respect for Reagan’s ability to deliver memorable lines and even inject a bit of humor into dry affairs like political debates.

It’s interesting that age is an issue between the two current V.P. candidates and age was an issue also back in 1984. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

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October 10, 2012 · 7:11 pm

The attack of the swollen arms

There are a lot of things you wish you hadn’t seen when a loved one spends time in the hospital. One image that I will never be able to erase is the sight of Dad’s swollen arms.

They were swollen because of excessive fluid. A simple enough medical phenomenon, but still disturbing for the average person to witness. It was even more grotesque because the rest of Dad’s body was so emaciated. His arms looked like they belonged to a linebacker, not a 79-year-old man with Alzheimer’s who weighed 116 pounds.

I remember holding Dad’s fat hands and stroking those swollen arms while Dad was under sedation and on a ventilator. While I had seen Dad’s personality transform into someone I didn’t know due to Alzheimer’s, I was now forced to witness the physical transformation taking place within Dad. It was a sobering moment.

When you walk along someone battling Alzheimer’s, you will witness such high and lows of life. The experience makes one appreciate the dull moments of one’s life even more.

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October 9, 2012 · 7:48 pm

Driving into the ditch

I’ve passed the ditch Dad drove into almost every day since I’ve been staying with Mom in Ruidoso. It’s not very deep, but enough to give one a bit of a scare.

It was the beginning of the end for Dad behind the wheel. Families dealing with dementia often have a big struggle over getting their afflicted loved one to “hand over the keys.” In America especially, the car is such a symbol of independence. For those with Alzheimer’s, having to give up such a huge part of their independence is soul-crushing. While mental and physical faculties are usually quickly fading during the mid-stages of Alzheimer’s, people are usually still self-aware enough at this point to grasp the loss, and what the disease has claimed from them. It’s a heartbreaking moment.

For Dad, that shallow ditch was the beginning of the end of his driving career. Always a slow, careful driver, the big boat of a car he drove gently went off the road and settled into the lower ground. Mom and Dad were physically fine, but mentally and emotionally, they were wrecked.

The car set next to their condo for many months, until someone mentioned how long it had been sitting there. It went to the junkyard. Now the only memories of the car is a set of car keys and some old oil and brake fluid sitting in the storage closet outside.

The ditch represented more than just a minor car accident involving a man struggling in the mid-stages of dementia. My parents’ independence also took a hit, and sank along with the spinning wheels into the ground. They would manage, thanks to the small but very efficient public transit system in their small town, but that unplanned meeting with the ditch transformed their lives forever.

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October 8, 2012 · 5:32 pm

What a year can bring

This time last year, Mom was getting ready to move Dad closer to home. Dad was in the latter stages of dementia, but still ambulatory. He had fought a few mystery infections over the summer, but there was a glimmer of hope, that at least Mom would be able to visit Dad more often.

Of course, those hopes were quickly dashed. Those infections came back with a vengeance, and whatever medication the nursing home used to treat the symptoms caused Dad to have a very severe reaction. It was something that he never fully recovered from.

So as I watch the leaves fall from the trees as the fall season takes hold and transforms the world around me, I’m thinking about Dad entering the last seasons of his life last year. I remember the trepidation I had in my heart, worrying about the nursing home move and the impact it would have on Dad’s well-being. I had no idea for the roller coaster ride in store for me.

This year I’m on a different roller coaster ride of emotions, as my mom is now the one sick. You just truly never know what a year will bring.

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October 7, 2012 · 6:09 pm

A ripped up family photo

Now it’s easy to delete a bad family photo. If you don’t like what you see in preview mode, just hit a button and it vanishes forever. Back when I was a kid, you had to have the film developed. Then you had to go through the pack of good, bad and mediocre images, and choose which ones went into the family album. Or, if you had a Polaroid, you crossed your fingers as the image developed before your eyes.

There is one photo I clearly remember which did not earn a place in the family album. I was about four years old. Mom was trying out her new Polaroid and wanted to take family photos. Dad decided to hit the bar beforehand. He came home with cheeks as rosy as a clown’s and his breath reeked of beer. But he was happy and ready to grin for the camera.

Mom needless to say was not so happy. She tried to dissuade Dad but he wanted his picture taken … with me. I remember sitting on his lap, and smelling beer and smoke and Dad’s aftershave underneath the bar smell. I was happy, because Dad was happy, not understanding the source of his cheeriness. She agreed to take a photo, just to diffuse the situation. The moment was forgotten until years later, when I came across the photo, buried in a shoebox filled with family photos.

“Oh, I meant to throw that out,” Mom said and snatched it out of my hand. She ripped it up, trying to destroy the memory forever.

But her attempt failed, as I remember every detail of that moment. It’s not necessarily a bad memory, it’s just the ups and downs most families experience.

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October 6, 2012 · 7:58 pm

Holidays at the hospital

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen Christmas decoration displays already in stores. Every year, it seems to happen earlier.

This year, it reminds me of Dad.

Mom and I ate several times at the Albuquerque hospital cafeteria last November. On one visit, the staff were putting up some Christmas decorations. It seemed odd and out of place as a family member of a very sick patient, but hospitals are also workplaces for many employees. Why shouldn’t they be able to enjoy a little cheer?

Upstairs, Dad was heavily sedated, and knew not where he was, or what time of year it was. He would hang on for almost another month, before passing five days before Christmas.

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October 5, 2012 · 4:23 pm

A loyal companion gone

Mom has been missing Dad a lot lately. Now that she’s back home, she misses his presence even more than before. 40 years of daily contact is not easy to replace with something or someone new.

Over the past year, when Dad was in the nursing home, she learned to craft a new life for herself. It wasn’t easy or ideal, but she had her health then. Now that her health is in jeopardy, I think she is relying more on the good memories, before Dad’s dementia, when they had their boring yet comforting life together.

Of course, Mom had to live with a different version of Dad, the one with Alzheimer’s, for a few years. Even though that was very difficult, she had someone to take care of and protect, which made her feel needed.

Even though Mom and Dad were opposites in many ways, it is clear to me now how they fit together like puzzle pieces. Now that Dad is gone, Mom is finding it difficult to feel complete and whole again.

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October 4, 2012 · 8:03 pm

“No more hugs!”

Mom is getting a bit weary of being under the wing of a caregiver (me) and the home health care agency. She’s at that point where she’s feeling well enough to want her old life back, but she also knows that she has new limitations on her that prevent her from fully embracing her previous life.

Dad’s dementia created many limitations, both mentally and physically. But despite how he regressed partially into childhood, he still tried to maintain a sliver of independence. When Mom would go visit him at the nursing home, and she would try to hug him repeatedly when she was departing, Dad would pull away and loudly command, “No more hugs!”

At first it bothered Mom but then she interpreted it as Dad trying to hold on to a piece of himself. She relates the memory fondly now. Of course, little did she know that a year later she would be the one fighting to hold on to her independence.

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October 3, 2012 · 8:00 pm

Bombs over Belfast

When you are going through a trying time, it sometimes helps to put things in perspective. For example, Dad’s childhood was marked by a period where his family and friends had to rush to the bomb shelter in the middle of the night to protect themselves from the Nazi’s aerial attacks. This happened on a regular basis. The shelter was dark, damp and crowded. Babies cried, fathers cursed, and mothers prayed. Several hundred people died, and many families lost their homes and businesses.

One of the attacks occurred just five days after my dad’s 9th birthday. That’s a lot for a child to handle.

My typical childhood in the safety of an American suburb was far removed from these brutal brushes with death and destruction. It’s difficult to say how this violent childhood experience impacted Dad. Did it lead to his suspicious, paranoid nature? Perhaps. Has that led to my cautious nature? Perhaps.

Dad saw horrors as a young boy that I can’t even begin to imagine. Regardless of present strife, I’m lucky to have been spared such a traumatic childhood, full of uncertainty and chaos.

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October 2, 2012 · 8:50 pm

Dad lost in a festive moment

I can’t believe I had not come across this before, but I stumbled upon a YouTube video from the day Mom and Dad picked up Mom’s lottery jackpot check in Albuquerque. This was in 2010, when Dad still lived at home, but was sinking deeper into dementia.

It’s just a very brief clip, but Dad seems so lost, like an actor that stumbled into a scene without a script. There’s a misery and sadness in his posture and in his eyes that is heartbreaking.

Screengrab credit: New Mexico Lottery

What is so sad is that this should be one of the happier moments of my parents’ lives. Mom was trying to savor the moment, but she knew that no amount of money could save Dad’s mind. Several months later, Dad would become ill and never return home. Instead of a vacation, the winnings went to pay for him to live out his last months in a nursing home.

Of course, as a family, we were grateful that we could place Dad in a decent place, despite the issues that the facility had. Without that lottery jackpot, Mom and Dad would have been forced to go through their meager savings and ended up on Medicaid, where the level of care would have been sub-par at best.

So yes, we are thankful. But I know Dad in his normal state would have been grinning and talking about the “luck of the Irish” in this video clip. I’m just sorry he couldn’t fully enjoy a lucky moment for our family.

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