First Call
That morning Shelley received a call from a nurse at the nursing home. The nurse asked if Shelley was his daughter and Shelley replied that she is his daughter-in-law. The nurse said, "Well, he's asking to speak with Shelley, so here he is." When Dad got on the phone, Shelley asked Dad how he was. Dad replied, "Where are you?" Shelley asked what was wrong and Dad said, "I'm here at the hotel where you left me and I'm waiting for you to come get me. I don't have any money and can't find my car keys." Shelley reassured him and told him not to worry and we would see him soon.
Second Call
Later in the early afternoon, I received a call from Dad. When I answered the phone he said, "Where are you? I'm here at the theater and I don't know how to get home." I started to panic thinking that somehow Dad had managed to leave the nursing home undetected, even though he does wear an alert bracelet, and manged to walk a mile to the mall nearby where the theaters are located. When I finally figured out he was still at the nursing home, I asked what was wrong. His reply made no sense whatsoever so I asked him to just go lay down in his room and told him I would see him later in the evening. He said, "Okay."
A Visit
In the early evening Shelley and I went for our visit with Dad. He was in a good and talkative mood but had no recollection of his previous calls (of course we knew wouldn't). When we visit Dad, we have to prompt him with questions to get him talking, this visit he needed no prompting and just talked away. The sad thing was we had no clue what he was talking about. We understood some fragments of the conversation but there was no context for providing a clear picture of the conversation. However, what made this visit memorable was that not only was he in a talkative mood, but everything was funny and he laughed a lot too (no, there was no change to his medications).
Here is one sampling of our conversation and humor during the visit. We were laughing about something when I pointed to Shelley and asked, "Do you know who she is?" He looked over to her, started laughing again and said, "No, I'm not too sure who she is but she is too white!" We all just kept laughing, while Shelley gave him another cookie (we usually bring him cookies when we visit).
Third Call
After our visit with Dad that evening, I received another call from the nursing home around 10:30 p.m. The nurse that called asked if I would speak with Dad to help calm him down as he was very confused and agitated. When I spoke with Dad he wanted to know when I was coming to get him to take him home. I tried to reassure him that he was where he supposed to be but he kept saying he didn't know where he was. I told him to ask the nurse to take him to his room to lay down and that I would be by to see him soon. He said, "No, I'm just going to sit here and wait for you." I told him okay but if he got tired to go lay down. He said, "Okay."
It has been a week now since that Thursday and there have been no phone calls. I did visit him again yesterday evening and he seemed fine and so we had our usual visit.
Before I go...
I want to share some educational and encouraging resources with you all about Alzheimer's and how we can better cope with it. Here are some links to articles I believe are worth reading/viewing. Please let me know what you think.
Moments to Forget - Coping with Alzheimer's, Dementia, and Short Term Memory Loss
Alzheimer's Journey 6: As a Caregiver, Take Care of Yourself
I will be posting more links on future blog posts.
