Here Be Dragons

2009-04-26

I just spent three days caring for my Dad. The damage control is incredible. I can�t believe how well he�s gradually coped with being partially blind and old at the same time. He needs so much care and I feel the obligation to do my best by him like a rock on my chest and my failure to notice he�s failing even worse.

He can�t walk more than a few feet without losing his balance and falling. He doesn�t take his meds except his eye drops. He absolutely refuses any bad news about his conditions. He says, �You�re trying to make me into an invalid!� when we tell him the truth.

He�s convinced that his blood pressure medicine is not fixing his high blood pressure but is just keeping his completely normal blood pressure from going higher. His brain/memory medicine doesn�t exist because nothing is wrong with him and we are trying to make him an invalid.

I�ve gradually come to the realization that telling him the truth is pretty much processed the same as telling him a lie as he won�t accept the truth so �yessing� him has the same effect as the truth but without the resentment and argument, which he will promptly forget anyways.

My father is going missing in pieces. This sucks but it�s my own fault. My brother has been waving a flag for two years and I ignored it, fool that I am. I have come to the conclusion that I can not care for him on a daily basis at this time but he does need daily care. I will find him an assisted day care facility. This week.

I can�t help him walk and drive him to work and make him take his medications and listen to his stories over and over and ignore my wonderful, supportive Fred by entertaining my very demanding father. I can�t let my father rule the roost in preference over Fred and listen to CNN news for hour upon hour.

I am truly sorry. I thought I was better than this but I�m not. I thought I�d wrap my father in a blanket of love and spirit him away to my house for safekeeping but I can�t while I have options. This is a rude awakening for me.

He is not what I expected but neither am I. I never expected him to pull out a urinal and piss in it while I am sitting next to him. I never thought I�d have to buy a small waste paper basket to let him piss in it because the urinal will not accommodate the volume of his nightly piss. I never thought that every stair would be a problem and that his natural inclination is to be dirty rather than changing his clothes daily and it becomes a fight.

I never thought he would become irrational or that reason would be ignored. I never thought that reason would be ignored for a personal belief, even if it�s false. This is not my Dad. It sucks because some of him is still there and then this stranger shows up.

Previous < < | > > Next