Hubby got the Dad up and I plugged in the coffee pot. (Yes, we still use a perculator! Actually in this town, regular beans now appear to be a specialty item next to the massive array of pods.) Hubby went back to bed and I went to the bathroom…Before I was done, Dad started holler for son to come help him. So I attempted to finish up quickly and go quiet him down…trying to avoid having him wake up the rest of the household. Once I got there and inquired into what could be causing the problem, I got the usual answer of “fix….” (fill in the blank). This time it was the room. When I inquired what or how I should fix the room, he stumbled over some words and then got silent. Getting silent is his usual answer for questions I ask him.
I believe it is also his way of pulling into his own misery. He started to gradually do this when he realized he was unable to safely fly any longer. Flight was his passion and when he got to the point where he knew he was no longer safe, he went home put his feet up and just gave up at everything. So much so that he refused to even visit his flying buddy of several decades.
It was there that he began to stop talking and he began to lose his speech abilities. When he wants to he will talk and be interested in what is going on around him. I have seen it repeatedly. True he has lost some of his speech skills but I do not see anything here that looks like dementia. His short term memory is good, if he bothers to trouble himself with it. His long term memory is equally okay if you can get him to bother to try to use it. It appears he simply does not want to trouble himself with being involved in life.
And the problem has gotten worse. He does almost nothing by himself and refuses to try to. The other day he rather sternly suggested that I help him pee. I rolled his chair over to the pee funnel that has proved to work far better than the pee john….and suggested that he try doing this chore by himself. He told me he couldn't. I in turn told him of course he can, that he had been peeing by himself for over 80 years! I sensed that he heard me. I almost smart mouthed off that it was shameful for a man to expect his granddaughters to come stick a funnel between his legs because he has no gumption to at least try to do it himself. But I held my tongue.
This week we have been dealing with what we hope is his sensitive to drugs. A week ago, he had a follow up appointment for the infection in his arm. The doctor was sure there was more infection and said, “if we don’t get this now, he will be back in the hospital in another couple of weeks.” So he put him on a second round of antibiotic. So we have another week of his being profoundly sleepy groggy.
We all have just gotten used to this naked man sleeping in the alcove of the kitchen. It does make getting kitchen work done more time consuming and difficult. If we disturb his sleep we spend more time having to wait on him as he will sit up and then down and then need help getting covered up. If we let him sleep we have to tippy toe around...it is reminiscent of having sleeping children. You want them to sleep so you can get your house work done but you can’t make any noise because you don’t want to wake them up and have grumpy kids. Thus you are limited to what you can get done.
When he is profoundly sleepy like this there is more of what we have termed “sitting in hubby’s lap”. He cannot stand to be away from my husband. Literally he will pull up right next to him and have to be touching him. I suspect it might be out of fear. He knows that he is sleepy and not quite normal at the moment, so I suspect that he wants to be extra close to his son for security. This makes it impossible for hubby then to do anything except sit with his dad and very difficult for the rest of us when hubby has to be out.
I have suggested that since all hubby does is sit in the kitchen with his dad he could help with the cooking a little. But I have learned he cannot smell food burning when it is right next to him, while I can smell it from two rooms away….maybe this is an idea that needs a bit of development…
We are discussing the possibility of at least getting the carpet off of the kitchen floor. We have the new flooring bought and sitting in the garage taking up much needed space and making it impossible to get into the attic. The center island and dishwasher cannot be put in until the new flooring goes down….
….stay tuned to see if we can actually make this happen any time soon.