@givemeaspell wrote:
Ash, does your father know who you are? You are doing an amazing job and I totally understand how that can get you down. My father is the loveliest man, he is starting to lose his memory, mostly short term I think, he recalls people from years ago but is not sure whether they have passed or still here. He used to be master of the tv remote, now he can't change a chanel yet other things he is spot on with. Im not sure whether this is the start of alzheimers or just old age memory loss. Sometimes we need time out for ourselves too, hope you manage to do that. Even if it's just sitting having a coffee or a wine, whatever is your pleasure. You need that.
There are many forms of dementia.....Alzheimer's is just one form and we were told by Dad's doctor that the tests for Alzheimer's are very invasive and not worth doing if the patient is very old (Dad was 90 at the time). As far as I am aware all forms of dementia affect memory.
While any form of dementia is very sad, sometimes you have to laugh...or you would spend your days in tears.
While Dad was in the nursing home just a few kilometres from where we lived there was a very severe storm with lots of damage in the area.
The next day I mentioned it to Dad just for something to say and he maintained that where he was there was no storm at all....wrong Dad, the nurses were all talking about it. He then started to tell us about a storm that he went through "last week". When he got to the part where he had to ride his motor bike through this storm over to Bunnerong (Power Station) to work, I just bolted from the room. One of my daughters came after me to see if I was alright and ask why I had run out when Dad was telling his story. I was not sure whether to laugh or cry.....we both did a bit of both when I explained that "last week's" storm had taken place nearly 70 years ago. Dad used to ride a motor bike when he was an apprentice at Bunnerong Power Station.
Some of out other brushes with dementia were quite frightening.....one night Dad asked me if the local locksmith was still a few blocks away (he had been gone over 20 years) as both his door locks were not working. I was a bit surprised as I had just used my key to come in the front door.....it turned out he had forgotten how to use a key to open his doors.
He wanted his video recorder repaired...it turned out he did not remember to set his TV to the correct channel to use it and had no idea what we were talking about.
The funniest one of the lot was when I walked in with a lady who had come to assess Dad for various services (not the ACAT team). There was a strange buzzing coming from the kitchen. I dashed out to find his electric razor jumping all over the bench top. When questioned he said he was recharging it. That was fine, but he could not understand that it was not supposed to be turned on while it was charging.
Thankfully, for every frightening episode there were others that just made us laugh. It was not unusual for me to get a phone call from one of my daughters to ask what Pop was referring to when he told them some story. One of them wanted to know when Pop had built the bird aviary as she could not remember it....that was when he was a child of 7 or 8 and even I could not remember the birds as they were gone by then and the aviary was my cubby house....in a house that had been demolished before my daughters were born.
