April 29, 2009

I picked my father up at about 11:45 today. We drove over to Lobster Cove Restaurant on Long Sands Beach. When we walked in it was apparent that he was a familiar face to the staff. When the first waitress said hi to him he asked her how she knew him. She said he came in often. He had no clue. We went upstairs where there are spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean through very large windows. The light was crisp and clear and the ocean was deep hues of blue. We both ordered Haddock sandwiches and he started talking about a woman he knew when he was 18. She lived one summer near Chases Garage in York Beach and she worked at Garfields Store. He said he would like to find her. I asked her name and he couldn't remember.

He said her father was a police officer from Massachusetts and that as far as he knew she spent one summer in York Beach. As the haddock sandwiches, french fries and cole slaw disappeared from our plates he reminisced about the people he had worked for when he was young. He pointed out the window and to the rocks that were placed between the beach and the road as a buffer and said he had driven the dump truck that carried most of those rocks. He said the company that contracted the job was from Augusta and it took about a year. Perhaps around 1949. He also talked about being in Korea and the harrowing boat trip accoss the Pacific and how the boat cracked in half and had to be repaired in transit. He said there was lots of dancing on the ship, no women. But he added, "there were some great dancers."

He asked me if we could have more to eat. I assumed he was talking about desert. I asked him how his sugar level was and he told me 175. He said he wasn't sure though, inferring he may be wrong and hoping I would think it may be lower. We asked the waitress if she had anything sugar free and she said no and added that she was sorry. We left and drove out the Fox's Restuaruant at the Nubble Lighthouse as they have an ice cream window. There was a large sign in the window that said opening May 1.

No luck there so we perused back to Long Sands and stopped at the Long Sands General Store where they had sugar free coffee ice cream. He got a sugar cone with a bit of ice cream. He didn't let the server put much in the cone and she charged us only $1. The price I paid for mine was $2.50. We went out and sat in the sun heated warm truck and I let time stand still for a moment. Sitting there with my dad, just like I was a kid again, eating ice cream with nothing much to do. Only this time I was making the rules and he never contested.

He then asked if we could drop in on some friends and I had to tell him I needed very much to get back to work. I had been gone two hours and felt very anxious. I drove him back to Sentry Hill and walked him to the door. He gave me two hugs and thanked me several times. I thanked him for going with me and left him in the doorway, still open and closing.

Yesterday was my middle child and son's 16 birthday. I told my father but he didn't really acknowledge it. Only a few years ago he would greet us on birthday's and Christmas with $100 dollar bills. Those days are past. The days of him driving into our yard, pushing the front door open without knocking and saying, "hello, anyone here?"

April 28, 2009

Here is an interesting link on brain games from Scientific American

April 27, 2009

Today has been uplifting. My sister and I took my father to his attorney to find out if he is somehow legally bound to have 24 hour care. Not that we would want him to be on his own, at his house. Rather he has been insistent that he finds out who has authority to keep him locked up and challenge them.

After he was released from the hospital in January 2009 he was sent to Sentry Hill with a note indicating he required 24 hour care. We didn't know who could make such decisions and who could challenge them or what the decision was based on, his mental or physical condition.

My fathers attorney told us that typically a family doctor will decide this or it could be others. And once this recommendation was made it would have to be the attorney general who would rescind it. Additionally, if my father were to move back home and someone saw him in a situation that they thought may be neglectful the Attorney General's office would assign him a guardian. We don't think my father would be safe living on his own. Though we both are appreciative my father is so close by my father begs to differ. We left the attorney's office with not much encouraging information, sadly.

After the meeting I offered to take my dad out for coffee so he and I drove a mile up the street to the York Hospital Cafeteria. As we sat drinking coffee and he ate a doughnut, many times he told me he wanted to go to talk to the person who was above the social worker at Sentry Hill. I needed to get to work and told him I didn't think we would get very far and really didn't know what to ask. He was insistent, so we left the hospital and returned to Sentry Hill.

We entered the building and walked down the hallway and to the business offices. We found the administrator right away and she was very interested to hear what my father needed to express. She asked him what was on his mind and although he deferred to me initially I told him to give it a go and he did a remarkable job at expressing how frustrated he was with being locked in. She listened very attentively and asked him if he moved to a section where he would not be locked in, if after he left that he would always return. He said yes, and explained he was very trustworthy and added that she was causing him great distress by keeping him locked up. She felt his anguish and seemed very sympathetic.

She made no promises to him but said she would talk with the social worker and the head nurse and get a consensus. He pressed her a bit to find out when they would decide and she gave him the impression that perhaps tomorrow.

I was very proud of my father. The way I am when one of my kids do something spectacular. He had lots of determination and focus and really made a difference for himself. He demonstrated that he had intelligence and lots of common sense.

It has been difficult to know that he has been locked up. The people he is with in the Alzheimer's unit seem to be at a more advanced stage of the disease. Also, these are not people he would choose to be with, he has no history with them. It is not like they are friends or even acquaintances. He does seem to partake in some of the activities they offer like singing and throwing a ball but when I have taken him to his house he is vastly more stimulated.

I am hopeful that he will get a chance to go outside on these lovely spring days and feel a bit of freedom once again in this stage of his life.

April 22, 2009

Dad called me up last night and asked if I would come over in the morning to talk to the social worker and her boss. He counted on his fingers Jan, Feb, March, April yesterday when we were eating lunch in the York Hospital cafeteria and said, "they told me I could go home in 3 months."

He landed at Sentry Hill in January because he fell in the night when trying to go into his bathroom at home. He tripped over a box and broke some ribs. I took him to the hospital and they discovered he should not go back home alone.

So this morning I drove over to see him only to discover a friend of my sister's had taken him out to breakfast. So I missed seeing him and don't think I can get back today. I called the social worker a few moments ago and asked her to talk to him as I know he is waiting to go home. The three months he was promised have passed.

I found this website that describes what happens the the brain with Alzheimer's Patients. http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_4719.asp

April, 21 2009

Today is rainy. The first rainy day for a few weeks. I am feeling a bit sad today in regards to my father. Silas and I picked him up on Sunday from Sentry Hill and took him to our house for dinner.

On the way we needed to pick up some juice and milk so we stopped by Hannaford's. When we walked in he lit up and asked, "Kev, do you think we could get some of those things?"

He held his hands in a shape that I immediately knew what he was asking. He loves French Twirls, which we call cream horns. His sugar was higher than desired but I relented and we found them in the bakery section. They came in 4 packs and there were going to be 5 of us, so we had to get 2 packs. He was like a kid and when we got back in the car I told him I was concerned about his sugar and he mischievously replied, "If he were in his truck he would eat them all."

Next we stopped by his house and he seemed so at home. His memory was working as well as I have seen in the last 10 years. He moved around his house knowing where everything was. Then we walked around his yard and he started his truck and then tried to start his tractor. It didn't fire up on the first try and he knew it wouldn't. It had been sitting all winter and the battery was low. He left it alone and said he really wants to get back up here and get things done.

He sits at Sentry Hill with nothing to do all day. Though he does take walks with attendants and occasionally goes out to lunch with others in the passenger van he has been cut off from what he would do if he had a choice. He is not allowed out of the facility on his own.

I thought about this a lot yesterday.

After we left his house we went to my house and had corn chowder. Sandra made it and it was very good. We all enjoyed it and my father and I had two bowls each. Sandra also made some excellent yeast rolls which my father kept complementing her on. He said they were like the ones his mother used to make. When I asked him what it was like at the dinner table when he was a kid he said he didn't know.

Since my father has been at Sentry Hill when he comes to our house for a meal he has been helping to clear off the table. This is very atypical. He never did such a thing when I was younger and do not know what makes him do it now. At Sentry Hill he is served in a dining room and waited on. It's not something he picked up there.

After we finished dinner we had desert, remember the cream horns? They were gone in no time. 300 calories, 260 from fat, ouch!

Eventually my father went into the bathroom. He was in there for longer than Sandra and Silas thought necessary. They both suggested I check on him. I knocked on the door and said, "Dad, are you ok?"

He said, "Kev, get me out of here, will you?"

I opened the door and he was standing opposite the door facing a wall looking for the way out. It was eerie and I felt sorry for him in his unknowing. I helped him out and we went back into the kitchen. We sat back down with Sandra at the table and he said, "What is this, is this your living room?"  as he looked over at the sink with unwashed dishes, the stove, pots and pans and everything else that says kitchen to me.

I said, "No dad, this is the kitchen."

A few weeks ago we were taking a drive along the ocean near the Cape Neddick Lighthouse. We were talking about people we hadn't seen in a while and he said there was a girl he would like to see. He couldn't remember her name but he knew her years ago. She was from another state. I asked which one and we decided it was Massachusettes. Then he said she was from Gloucester and then Rockport. He said he would like to talk to her sometime. He said he used to go out with her when he was younger. He was talking about my mom. They have been divorced for 25 or so years.

April 16, 2009

My dad and I took a nice long walk this morning. Although it was 45°F and sunny when the wind blew it was cold. Otherwise it was spring like. We walked up through the center of York Village and my father pointed out a bronze monument memorializing veterans from the Korean Conflict. He was particularly proud to find his name which he knew was there. From there he asked if we could go into the town hall. He said hi to the girls in the clerks office and then walked into the Code Enforcement Office and talked to Tim. He asked him about a growth permit and building permit and when they would expire.

From there we walked back to Sentry Hill. When I am with my father it is apparent that in many ways time has stopped for him. Not only is he retired but his dementia enables him to be even more in the moment. This is quite painful for me as I need to tell him that I have to leave him and go back to work. He always seems to be taken by surprise. In a way I cross over the gauge of time when I am with him. Things are about him, mostly. And I enter into his realm of reality like a runner becomes the road. It is a comfortable place but only temporary. It is peaceful and I wouldn't mind being in that space more.

After our walk we went into the upstairs dining room and served ourselves a cup of tea. Sentry Hill is quite elegant and grand, especially upstairs. And as I sat amid this modest opulence I kept wondering how my father ever came to be here.

We finally went down stairs I gave my dad a hug and told him I would call him later this evening.

April 15, 2009

7 pm

I stopped by Sentry Hill today to take my dad for a walk. I needed one as much as he. When I arrived at 3:30 I was told he had already been out for a walk with Sarah, the social worker. He had also been on a long drive down to Rye, NH.

There were a few errands I needed to do so I asked him if he would like to come along. We stopped by an insurance company for which I needed to pick up a check for some recent work I had done for them. My father had used them for insurance since I can remember. One of the ladies in the office had asked me a month ago to bring him by when possible. So we both went in together. He was warmly greeted with a hug. There was much affection and even some flirting.

Next we went to the bank where the girls are particularly fond of him. Today was quiet though. Not sure why. I made my deposit and we left. We then went up stairs to where happens to be his attorney and we re scheduled an appointment.

When we got into the car to leave the bank/attorney office my father asked me if I thought it was fair. He meant that he is restricted from any freedom at Sentry Hill and even that he is there. I told him no. I thought is was bad as he cannot go for walks on his own and is restricted from doing all the things that were important to him only 4 months ago.

Sadly, he was frustrated and asked what would happen if he told them he was going to kill himself. I told him they may move him to another facility that deals with only suicidal people, which would be far worse.

We drove back to Sentry Hill and I asked him if he had been praying and he said no. We held hands in my truck and he said a prayer that was very heart felt. I told him that no matter what, if he stayed in control of what he could, that no person could take his ability to find joy occasionally and happiness.

April 1, 2009

It's 8 pm and I am just finishing up work for the day.

I took my father out to lunch today. We went to the York Hospital cafeteria. We arrived at noon and it was very busy. He was very frustrated at being at Sentry Hill. His freedoms have been taken and he is very aware of it. He has lost his license and he is required to stay behind locked doors, protected with a keypad lock.

After we returned to Sentry Hill from lunch we took a walk to Woodbridge road which is approximately 3/4 miles. I asked him to lead the way and he did no with no problem. After we said goodbye to each other I went up to see the social worker. Her name is Sarah. I asked her if there were any way she knew of for my father to get some of his freedom back, such as taking a walk on his own. I explained that I had just taken a walk with him and he guided us both to and from with no problem.

Sarah said that the facility cannot take the risk as they would be responsible if anything happened. I agree with her though feel very bad for my father. I think there is a chance that he would do fine on his own, though I would not want to be responsible if he got lost. We both tried to think of other activities an 80 year old man who is in very good physical shape could do. There was anything really.

Added to his feeling like a prisoner he is confined with others who are in far worse mental and physical condition. There is no-one that I can see with whom he can become friendly. So here is my dad, 80, confined to a room with people he would never have picked to be with.

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