Eating Chicken With a Knife and Fork

Mom called me this afternoon to see what I was doing for dinner. I was going to run an errand and then grab something out. Dad had been working outside in the Texas June heat and humidity cleaning out his van, and he was still wiped out. She needed to go to church and hadn't planned on feeding him. Could I do anything with him? 

Dad has never been self-sufficient when it comes to cooking. On his best day in my lifetime, if Mom didn't leave him specific food and he had to scavenge, lunch would be cold hot dogs or something equally appetizing. I've never seen him plan and execute a meal, although if Mom handed him the meat, he was good with the grill.

Now, with his early-onset dementia that has been getting steadily worse over the past 10 or so years, he is more lost in the kitchen than ever. 

Mom rarely asks for help on the spur of the moment, and it was not a problem for me to adjust my plans. I swung by Kroger for some fried chicken on my way home and headed back to their house. 

He was waiting, expecting me, which is a positive. So far, he's always known who I am, and he knew why I was there. Mom had set the table and cut up some sweet, deep red watermelon that was well chilled in the fridge. 

Some foods are just meant to be eaten with your fingers. Hot dogs, burgers, sandwiches, BBQ and fried chicken, among them. Dad always gently teased Mom for using a knife and fork. He could strip a bone with his teeth as well as any of my dogs could, although not quite as quickly. 

Tonight, I gave him a thigh, and he picked up his knife and fork and began trying to cut it. He did that the last time we had chicken out, but I thought it was because that piece was right out of the fryer. 

As I watched him, it struck me how far his disease has progressed. It wasn't so much the knife and fork as it was his inability to figure out how to cut the meat away from the bone and his frustration at being able to find a piece larger than a nibble.  He finally got it turned better and ate about half the piece in bites he cut. 

Dad reappeared a few minutes later, picked up the piece and soon had the bones on the discard plate, stripped completely of any morsel of meat.  If my dogs got to chew on chicken bones, they would have been sorely disappointed. 

We had a great time talking about nothing in particular--grocery stores we had been to, his getting a hair cut as a third-class cadet at Kings Point Merchant Marine Academy, and silly stuff people had posted on Facebook. I nearly got him to spit a mouthful of tea. 

He might not remember I was there by the time Mom gets back from church, but that's OK.  Well, not really OK, but how it is. It's part of the disease.

I'll remember for him.

(This is my first blog about us. I'm going to use it to help me remember what we do, how we feel, and what's happening with the dementia, and maybe to encourage others who are also on this path. I'll post recent happenings and also go back over the years to fill in other parts. Come along with us and help us remember.)