Living and Loving

My mom travelled to Italy for a two week vacation from June 16 through July 1. My maternal cousin and her two kids stayed with him in Ocean Grove during this time. I spoke to him on the phone a few times (and taped it) and I spent time with him three of the days.

I already posted a summary of the Father's Day conversation. This was followed by two more conversations. The long story short is that I believe he was feeling confused and emotionally displaced resulting from the absence of my mother. I also have a few opinions regarding the treatment he received from my cousin and family, based on both the stories he told me and from what I saw at another cousin's graduation party on the 23rd.

Christopher's high school graduation:

Tiffany and I arrived at the party about an hour into it. My dad had already been there for a while and was visibly upset when we arrived. He was very relieved to see me and told me how happy he was that we came. I videotaped much of the day. But on balance, I would say that he had a great time with Tiffany and me. He also talked quite a bit about how Betsy was mean to him. A funny name he called her was "Picklehead", which unfortunately I did not capture on video. However, I did capture a few tirades about her forcing pills down his throat and yelling at him. The night ended with us both dancing on the patio.

Tuesday night, Betsy called Tiffany to tell her that she could go watch him in Ocean Grove while she and the kids "took a break" from him and go to the beach. Given that he had been going to daycare 3 days a week, I wasn't very pleased with the manner in which Tiffany was told, and not asked, to help out. This part of the story is a bit of a digression and unpleasant, so I'd rather not discuss it in more detail at the moment.

Tiffany arrived to find that the house was generally cluttered. Betsy had told me a few stories about him getting angry at them for the mess. The problem is that my dad understands that he owns the place. And he also has a long history of getting very angry about clutter in the house. There was a Christmas in my childhood that he got very angry and yelled at the rest of us about all the mess from the Christmas unwrapping. I also won an essay contest in second grade titled "Oh What a Mess" regarding our attic. Without a doubt this was influenced by some of his tirades on the topic at the time. In any case, people with Alzheimer's generally need their environment to be as uncluttered as possible because it accentuates the "clutter" in their mind. If that's not scientifically valid for a wider population, it definitely applies to my dad.

Generally unhappy with how I believed he was being treated and his general unhappy mood, I took a personal day last Friday so that I could spend some time with him. Tiffany brought him back to NY Thursday night. He and I chatted on his bed for half an hour before we went to sleep. Most of the discussion was about how Besty was mean to him as well as wondering if Ann were coming back to take care of him. I listened to him and reassured him that Ann would be back very soon.

My dog Knuckles slept with him, which Tiffany pointed out may have helped him associate where he was if he woke up in the middle of the night confused by his surroundings - he has only been to our apartment twice before. Friday morning we woke up around 8AM. He was generally weepy and repeated numerously how happy he was to be with us and that he loved Tiffany, Knuckles and me.

He looked like he hadn't had a good shave in days, so I shaved him. Then I watched as he went to the bathroom and ensured he wiped properly. Then I got him in the shower and assisted him lathering up and washing his hair. I helped him get dressed and ready for the day. All in all, this process went much more smoothly than I anticipated. Particularly going to the bathroom. We enjoyed a bacon and egg sandwich and hash browns for breakfast. He took his medications after breakfast, which included an anti-anxiety pill. Betsy had warned us that we may need another dose in the afternoon because he would get angry. We didn't need this afternoon dose.

After breakfast, he and I watched TV and talked. Much of the discussion was focused on how Betsy was mean to him and yelled at him and how happy he was that we were there. I tried very hard to steer him away from the emotional memories of being mistreated and to focus more on enjoying the present with Tiffany and me. This was a day-long endeavor as we slowly replaced near-term memory with happy ones. The three of us took care of some chores and we laughed about this or that along the way. We went for lunch and then he came with me for my haircut.

Later on, he and I met Curt at the studio. We began videotaping as soon as we arrived. I gave him a painting that Curt and I had worked on. He didn't care for it very much and asked what he was supposed to do with it. So he wore it as a hat and danced around for a few minutes. So I bought it back from him for $1. After Curt left, I taped roughly 1.5 hours of me interviewing him about football and his career at Strober King.

I was drinking pretty heavily throughout the course of the day, so I got pretty hammered. In hindsight, perhaps obviously, this was a poor choice as going about the morning routine with a happy face the next day was much more trying on my patience. But we managed to get through it with similar results as the previous morning. Saturday's morning routine was nearly identical to Friday's with the exception that his discussion about being mistreated by Betsy decreased significantly and replaced more by how happy he was to be with us.

We walked Knuckles and videotaped our walk. I gave him the camera and asked him to point it at himself so that I could walk Knuckles and clean up after him.

Saturday afternoon, we dropped him off with Betsy as we had a wedding Saturday night. My mom went to pick him up Sunday. I spoke to my mom and dad sunday and they both expressed that he had had fun with us.

It was a great experience and certainly a lot of things to digest and formulate. I wanted to get as much of this written now before it passes much further, but I'm kind of tired at the moment to get into more of the details, particuarly my thoughts and impressions from what I learned this weekend.

Living and Loving, Buddy