Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash
(Author’s Note: With Father’s Day approaching, I’ve been thinking about my Dad and decided to share some posts I wrote in 2015 after his death. Anyone who’s experienced Alzheimers/Dementia with a loved one knows well the unique heartache it is to watch them slowly lose the memories that make up their life.)
Band-aids. That's what I'll remember from the last few years of my Dad's life.
The funny thing is, you usually associate them with children. I wore my share as a kid and applied many more as a parent. But you don't think of them as something senior citizens need unless you're dealing with the frequent falls that result from dementia.
I've heard the expression that we "come full circle" in our lives, and now I understand how true that is. Unfortunately, I didn't have the up-close experience of the aging process with my grandparents. Still, I made up for it with my own parents.
It began as a simple fall in the yard, on the grass, while mowing, no harm done. Some time went by, and then another fall. We blamed it on his athletic slides, so we threw them away when he wasn't looking. Then another fall, and we noticed that he was shuffling his feet when he walked. I thought it might be Parkinson's, so I took him to his doctor. That visit began a three-year journey that only recently ended. His PCP did various tests and sent him out to specialists, determined to figure out what was happening. By the time we got the diagnosis, more symptoms had appeared.
My Dad was always an outgoing people-person but suddenly became quiet and subdued. When we gathered for the holidays, he sat in the TV room rather than joining us to socialize. This was completely unlike the guy who had always loved a good party.
He grew increasingly forgetful and depressed, continued to have balance issues, and the falls kept coming. Eventually, Dad lost his driver's license after hitting a parked car in his neighborhood. It wasn't the accident that surprised me most, but the fact that he drove away without reporting it. The incident shook up Mom, but Dad kept denying it until the police officer showed up at the door.
Once we knew about dementia, we understood what was happening inside my father's brain. But I'll never forget the day that I really understood the magnitude of the situation and what was coming. My Dad looked at me with somewhat pleading eyes and said, "I asked your mother when we were going home, and she said that we are home." At that moment, we were standing in the living room of their house.
Talk about the monster under the bed. Here was the man who could scare off the bad guys and perform amazing feats in a single bound, looking frail and confused. My inner child was shaking, and I knew it would only worsen.
In February 2014, my Dad suffered a fall that put him in the hospital for ten days. His cognition had gotten so bad that he no longer threw his arms out, a usually involuntary response. Ultimately, he faceplanted on the hardwood floor. He suffered another fall in the hospital that resulted in additional days to his stay. After being discharged, he went to a nursing home for follow-up care. He was placed in the Alzheimer's/Dementia unit, and I hated the fact that he was there. He wasn't like those other people. At least not yet.
We hurried to make the house safer and tried to figure out how to keep him from falling again. I remember my brother and me picking him up at the end of his convalescent stay. It was an unusually sunny day for winter, and I felt delighted to be bringing him home.
But it was short-lived. Despite home health care and efforts to teach him to use a walker, we couldn't keep him off the floor. My mother tried to keep an eye on him at all times, but it was impossible, and he refused the walker.
Dad began to have "sundown" syndrome, a period of agitation that generally occurs in the early evening. He would become angry and combative, using expletives and blaming others for perceived slights. Another problem was that Dad no longer slept through the night. Instead, he was up and down, taking my mother with him. They slept in separate rooms, and sometimes she didn’t hear him. Eventually, he tried to leave the house after midnight, but luckily she heard him. He told her that he had to go to school.
I got so accustomed to seeing him cut and bandaged; his bruises varied colors depending on where they were in the healing process. It amazed me that he hadn't broken any bones yet.
We lived in constant fear of the next bad fall. It wasn't a matter of if but when. That "when" came less than three months later, and the band-aids kept getting bigger.
On My Father’s Dementia by Daniel Marcou his mind has holes i reach into each feeling my way through the darkness of memories dimmed wondering what i will grasp that he can’t anymore his mind has holes yet his heart is full beating with each breath like a clock ticking the days away there is no future there is no past there is just what there is and even the present doesn’t make sense anymore his mind has holes i reach inside them with the hope of finding my father not for me or my family but to give him himself again his mind has holes and through them he journeys in a circle from obsession to paranoia and back again his mind has holes he waits in a cerebral bread line hungry for memories starving for stories his mind has holes what was once whole is now hole after hole if only they were truly empty and not so full of confusion.
Please remember the real me when I cannot remember you. – Julie White
Band Aids