May 9, 2009

After not visiting my dad yesterday I knew that he would wonder where I had been. An old friend of mine was committed to a mental health facility, both he and his wife were suicidal. This really took a lot out of me. Also, my son was part of an honors banquet to which both Sandra, my wife and I accompanied him too. As usual, work seems to get the time that is left over from so many other seeming priorities.

This afternoon I was able to visit my father and had a very nice time. Back when he used to go to the York Hospital Cafeteria daily he befriended a very nice lady and her 92 year old dad. She has called several times and made arrangements for either my sister or myself to meet them at the cafeteria with my father for dinner. He very much looks forward to it.

Tonight the arrangements had been made and we met them just after 5:30. After dinner they had found out we had walked over to the hospital and offered us a ride back to Sentry Hill. We accepted and were able to give them a quick tour of the facility.

The early night sky was very beautiful. The flowering trees seemed to be on fire. The lush green grass was pushing upwards in a hurry and was in need of a trim. There is a pond just below my father's unit and there was a mother duck and 12 baby ducklings paddling about and then sauntering about in the bushes. They were a lovely site and a true confirmation spring has finally arrived.My father, Haven with his friends Frank (center) and Theresa (right)

After the my dad's guests left we sat in a large octagonal room. I showed him some photos I had taken on my camera's monitor and then we were interrupted by one of the staff. My father clearly did not like it and was quite rude. The lady was very nice to him but he just wouldn't reciprocate. He can be like this, I don't know why.

Before dinner we had walked up through town and found our way to the town hall porch. There was a very nice bench on it and we sat down. My father was very concerned we would be late for dinner with his friends. We were an hour early and I suggested we walk behind the town hall and into the First Parish graveyard to look for his grandfathers headstone.

He pointed us to the right direction. Although as we got closer he started to walk off into a bushy thicket. I asked where he was going and he said the grave was that way. I said no, follow me and based on his previous directions we were able to find the headstone. It was inscribed with FREEMAN...JOHN W. FREEMAN, RALPH FREEMAN and his wife ABBIE FREEMAN

I had never seen this headstone before. John Wesley was my great grandfather. My grandfather and grandmother are also in this cemetery and we both began looking for them. I kind of knew where they were but couldn't find them. My father was anxious not be late so we abandoned the graveyard and headed for the hospital cafeteria.

May 7, 2009

Yesterday was very busy. I left for Worcester, MA at 7:30am to pick up my oldest son at Clark University where he just completed his freshman year. My wifes parents met me there and after we packed him up we walked around the campus. This was his grandparents first visit to the campus. The grounds looked especially nice with the flowering trees speckled against the brick buildings.



After driving home I got to work around 1:30 and worked til 6:30pm on a website that I had made good progress on. Then I jumped in my truck and drove over to Sentry Hill to visit my dad.

When I walked into the common area I was approached by one of the kitchen staff and was told my father offered her $5 to take him outside.

I found him in his room with the door closed. I knocked and he said, "who is it."

I said, "Kevin." I pushed the door open and walked in. He had been lying on his bed. I sat in a chair and asked how he was. He looked pretty good and didn't complain. I asked if he would like to take a walk or go for a ride. He said he had no preference so we walked.

We took a nice walk, probably just under 2 miles, up York Street and through the center of town and returned via Woodbridge Road. He was very lucid and insistent that I explain what had been told to me by the social worker. I explained that she told me he would be allowed to go out whenever he wanted. He only needed to ask someone and that they did not want him to feel like he had been locked in.

After our meeting with the administrator last week it was decided we would have a meeting with the administrator, head nurse and social worker to discuss the options for my father. It seemed too complicated to get us all together so I had an abreviated meeting with just the social worker over the phone. She said they considered moving my father into another section where there are no locked doors which would allow him to leave anytime.

My sister and I have apprehension about this, as well as the above mentioned staff. We are not certain he would always be able to find his way back and after walking with him in town I am concerned he may not notice an oncoming car. So we decided it would be safest for him to stay in the Browning unit but somehow allow him access to the outside, attended.

Toward the end of our walk my father asked me if we could go up to his house as he wanted to charge a battery for his tractor. I tried to think of other options for charging it, such as have me do it on the way home as I live a mile from his home. But he persisted and we drove up to his house. It was around 9pm when we pulled into his darkened driveway. He asked me if we were at Bud's house as he didn't recognize where we were. I told him this was his home, we got out and everything became familiar to him. He checked the heating oil level, started his truck up, opened his front door and we walked in finding everything just as he left it.

He perused through his many most cherished items making sure they were there and finding many other things that interested him. He was proud of the fact that he knew where most of the items had come from, from whom he purchased them from or some seemingly otherwise unimportant fact.

He excitedly said, "I don't know how I remember all this stuff Kev, I just do!"

He asked me to confirm his reason for excitement which I did as I wondered how he was able to retain so much info when yesterday my sister told me he was clueless about where he was, people and even food.

Yesterday has probably been his worst day. She said he was very despondent. I planned on visiting him with my middle son but when I picked him up at school he told me he was feeling like he may have the flue. So I decided not to visit my dad.

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.