130 "Get in the shower"

Monday my mom called, frantic, saying "get over here and deal with your father."
He couldn't find the bathroom, couldn't ask for it, and pooped himself. Fine, no reason to make a big deal, right? But he refused to remove his soiled clothes or take a shower. My poor husband was in the bathroom with this smelly wreck of a man for a good half hour. He started off asking nicely and then progressed to threats (I will cut your clothes off with scissors) and yelling (take off your clothes! Get in the shower!). I just sat there in the living room like a useless lump, knowing that going in there would make things worse --remember how he freaked out when he peed himself a few weeks ago and I was there?
I can't say how much it sucks--you've heard it all, and if you're in this situation, you already know.
Here's another perspective: a friend of mine saw my dad recently. She had known him before he was diagnosed, not well, just as a friend's dad. This is what she wrote me when I told her about the above incident:

I can’t even say how I feel about your father. Seeing him that day ... just opened my eyes to what “Alzheimer’s” is/can be. I probably shouldn’t say this but I start to get all teary eyed when I think about him/it. I just can’t even image how that must be for him. In Monday’s case all he sees (lack of “knowing”) are people yelling at him & not understanding why these “people” are there and upset at him.

I just don’t get it/understand/know why things like this happen. What the hell are you/your mom etc supposed to “learn” from this. Isn’t that what they say “You learn something from your life experiences”? ahhhhh………. I’m just going to stop there because I think it’s something you could go on & on about.

My dad is having more and more trouble articulating even the most simple things. I've decided to bring my camera over there tomorrow and take pictures of everything he looks for: pens, pencils, wallet, keys, dog, cat, toilet, etc, and put them in a photo album so he can just point. To be reduced to that....it breaks my heart and more than that, it makes me so damn ANGRY. Anger makes me want to rant, and like my friend said, once you start ranting on it, you can't stop, because nothing makes the outrage go away. There is no panacea for this rage.

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Last weekend, I took my dad with me to see some ragdoll kittens at a breeder in Cheshire, Willow Pond Ragdolls. Linda was very kind, not upset that I showed up towing my whole family (well, me and my parents) or that my dad was mentally impaired. He was reluctant to hold the kittens ("too small") but held one of the mama cats and enjoyed watching me sit on the couch and play with them--she's got 8, 2 litters of 4 each born about 10 days apart. How do you pick? I fell in love with one of the littler ones, a seal point. He was the size of the palm of my hand and when I held him to my face and said "I'm going to eat you, you're so cute" he rolled over so I could scratch his belly. I will be going there again this weekend, to see which one I'll actually end up buying.
I already bought one, from Bluberri Cottage Cattery in Ledyard, where the breeder is also named Linda. He is the cutest, sweetest, smartest kitten I've ever owned, a seal point mitted with a blaze on his nose. I named him Chocolate Moose, the breeder named him Andy and my husband named him Sputnik Gauntlet. We call him Sputz.
We still have Nutter. He'll be 14 next week. He's got an ear infection, and of course he's still got lung cancer. Sputz loves him, jumps on him, licks him, follows him around. Nutter is not amused, although he is happy enough to eat Sputz's premium kitten food and lay on his window shelf. Once Sputz has a friend his own age, I hope he will calm down a little and they won't gang up on my poor old kitty.

110 Intruder alert and melt-down

Last Friday night I took a shower at my parents' because I had put fresh sealant in my ever-leaking tub. I left my towel, soap, shampoo, body scrub, and loofah gloves on the sink in their bathroom and went into the dining room to work on the puzzle (still Noah's Ark). It was really windy and the wind was scaring the dog who kept barking. The dog went running into the bathroom barking and then my dad went in there. He came out whispering and hunched over, saying that someone was out there. My mother went into the bathroom and looked out the window. No one. In a normal tone of voice, she told him no one was there. He got very angry, slamming his hand like a karate chop into the table, whispering "yes there is I'll prove it". He then went into the bathroom and came out with my wet towel as "proof" someone was in the house.
(I can't make this stuff up, you know.)
My mom said that it was my towel. She pointed at me, sitting there with wet hair, as proof. He couldn't understand. She took the towel and put it back into the bathroom. A little while later he went into the bathroom and came out with something else of mine, saying "who's here? whose stuff is this?" We could NOT get it through his head that it was MY stuff and there was no intruder. It wasn't like I was hiding or anything, I was sitting right across the table from him.
The dog was really scared of the wind and he kept barking and barking and my dad started hitting the dog with his hat (not hard, more like swatting) so I had to rescue Ace and hold him, because if I put him on the chair he'd jump off and we don't like him to jump onto the hard floor (he has a bad leg). Have you ever tried to do a puzzle while holding a 16 pound dog?
This morning my mom called and said my dad had a melt-down in Target. She doesn't really know what happened. She thinks maybe he thought they were going to Yale (same highway, same direction). He didn't want to go inside the building, then once inside he got very agitated and loud, started yelling, people were looking and pointing, and she had to bring him home since it's too cold to sit in the car. She thinks he's upset enough to take off, so she doesn't want to leave him home alone. Thus I am drafted to Dad-sit tonight.