But I wanted to write something today.
We left Concord this morning after having breakfast with my Dad at a local diner (Punchy's). It's been what seems like forever since I last saw my Dad. In reality, I saw him about three & a half weeks ago... That is a long time to me. :-)
Anyway, the 'we' I was referring to is my husband, "Boyfriend", and me. We left for Danville, VA to spend the weekend with his Mom & Dad.
Boyfriend's Dad has what's called Parkinsonism.
It's like Parkinson's but has other symptoms with it... Or something like that. :-)
Anyway, his Dad has Dementia. He was always quiet, but now he's even more quiet. But he's not having any combativeness or contrariness or anything like that. He's still a sweet and easy to get along with man. He remembers his daughters & son. He's very slow to answer any question. I'm not sure he knows what we're talking about. It seems like it takes him a long time to process what we say. You can see him working on it in his mind...
He takes lots of meds, four times a day. Just a few years ago, he didn't take anything except a baby aspirin! He only feels like lying around all day, and my MIL won't make him get up and do his exercises or anything.
We know that's not good, but we can't make her make him.
Boyfriend's mom is basically taking it all in stride. She's doing well for the most part. Yesterday, Boyfriend, his two sisters and his mom talked to a lawyer, and most of what she had to say was basically depressing. But after some time and pondering, we feel a little more at ease with the legalities, I think.
All any of us can do is take it all in stride. Sit back and breathe deeply a number of times each day. Trust that all will end as it should, in its own time...
I keep reminding myself of this.
We've had a fairly full day and are going to bed now.
Thanks for stopping by. :-)
-W
Someone sent me this blog because I write about my Dad(who passed last year) who had a slow moving dementia(or at the very least they could never come up with something else that stuck). I understand this journey very well. My Dad also never took medication before all of this, not even when he truly felt ill.
ReplyDeleteIt must be very difficult on your MIL as well, and I will tell you that although he may be nice when you(or your husband) are present, if the person living with him(MIL) begins to force him to do things he does not want, he may not be so nice then-and he may not do them anyway. Sometimes people with dementia feel they have "worked all day" or cleaned the yard, house, etc., though it is not true, and then need to rest. Also, they tend to be much nicer to someone coming into the situation, then someone around them all day(which is probably true for most of us).
~Mary