Changing Times

I haven’t written a blog in months. Lots have been running around in my head. I started one about evacuating during Hurricane Harvey, which I may still complete. But no finished products. Time and my schedule have been partly responsible. The major reason more recently is that to write means making what we experience more tangible, more permanent, in some way. If it’s only what happens when I am with Dad, I can shut it off some when I come home. I can think about other topics. His dementia is always reality, but it’s not mine for the moment. There’s a finality about the situation to me when the words are written. Proof that something happened. Yes, it’s all digital, and I can erase it, but it’s still different.

Five years ago I moved back to the Houston area. God provided a rental house a few doors away from Mom and Dad as well as a job I do from home. I was beyond-words grateful because it put me in a position where I could better help them. I knew about the effects of dementia from volunteering at a nursing home with my dogs and from the experiences of a few friends. I read articles and saw news stories here and there about the disease. Nothing, though, prepares you for the daily reality, especially when the downward spiral accelerates. While we still have happy times and see Old-Dad within Now-Dad (and I will try to write more of those), the days are harder. The descent is more rapid, sometimes it seems like a loss every day.

I am … amazed isn’t right … shocked or stunned, I guess, at the changes a person with dementia undergoes. Although I saw people change at the nursing home, I was disconnected from what was happening to them. How completely pervasive the disease is and how it takes over every aspect of someone’s life—and the lives of caregivers—didn’t register. I saw snapshots of the changes. I didn’t live the full-length movie. The awfulness is indescribable. (And I know it makes for a depressing returning blog. I’m sorry.)

When I returned, the effects on Dad were noticeable, but there weren’t too many and not too often. Among his abilities, he could (in no particular order):

• Drive solo in the neighborhood or around town when someone was with him to give directions
• Get his own lunch from the fridge or snack from the pantry
• Choose his clothes and get dressed
• Tie a tie
• Mow and edge the yard
• Use the TV remote and rarely get stuck in the system to the point he needed help
• Shower, shave and brush teeth independently
• Write articles for his high school alumni club
• Choose among two or three options at a restaurant
• Set the table
• Empty household trashcans and take the big can to the curb
• Understand the comics in the newspaper
• Have a daily devotion independently
• Wash his hands appropriately
• Express what his needs were, such as something hurting
• Understand what he was signing for on documents
• Vote at the voting booth
• Tell time on an analog clock
• Follow directions to help around the house, like where to put something away
• Stay home alone for several hours
• Keep himself occupied with different activities
• Play games on the computer
• Sort his business card collection
• Complete the daily Jumbles in the newspaper
• Find public restrooms by himself
• Choose gifts and cards for Mom
• Follow several directions given at one time
• Repeat a process after receiving directions
• Answer the phone and take a message
• Play games like Mexican Train dominoes with only a little help
• Initiate stories when a situation reminded him of a memory
• Serve food to himself at the dinner table
•  Identify foods on the table, peas versus broccoli, for example

 Now he can’t.