I was thinking about how my dad's AD is progressing. If you look at it from a perspective of superego/ego/id, it seems like the superego is already gone. The ego is being stripped away. All that's going to be left soon is the id--the primal part. Already his filters are gone--the way he farts outrageously and pretends he doesn't know, how querulous he is about everything, the way he will just get up and walk away (or say something is bullshit and then walk away) if he doesn't like it--the way he did at the senior center.
The Id is a base (basic) creature of wants and needs, essentially thoughtless. I wish I could put a tape recorder into my dad's head to see what's in there, how does he think, does he think? When he seems to be "not there" is anything happening in his head? Last week I brought my car over to their house to wash it. My dad's got all the buckets, sponges, cleaning fluids etc. He used to love to wash cars. He had no interest. My mom had to go find him and he was in the backyard talking to the cat about butterflies (typical). She asked him to come and help us wash the car and he answered "I have to go to the bathroom."
So her and I washed my car. She got me pretty wet--she's not at all careful where she aims the hose. Then she decided since we had the bucket of solution already made we might as well wash her car too. So I backed my car to the bottom of the driveway and we started washing her car. By then my dad came to the front yard. My mom asked him to do my windows. He just stared at her. I decided to go pick up my husband's car and wash that too (he only works a short distance away). I switched cars and came back. My mom had thoroughly soaped her car and was rinsing it. My father re-did the whole car and rinsed it again. She sprayed him with the hose by accident and he had a conniption. I didn't much care about getting wet--I had just come from swimming at the gym and was going to go home and shower anyway. But you'd think someone had sprayed him with toxic waste. Or poop. He just over-reacts to everything (that filter thing---lack thereof-- again).
He took over washing my husband's car and did his windows without being asked. So not sure what the disconnect was about washing MY car windows.
Since I wasn't needed to finish Will's car I went in the house and got the dog, who was flipping out and whining at the door to the garage. I sat on the steps with him and we were singing. He loves me and he loves to "sing" with me. He obviously had an owner he sang with before. He has rules about singing. You MUST be holding him and he has to have his head higher than yours. This means he climbs up onto your chest or shoulder, squirming madly with joy, and puts his head back in true wolf fashion and lets out these wondrous howls. All the person has to do is make fake howling noises to keep him going. In between howls he whines and licks and nibbles your nose, face and ears. It's truly hilarious and he does it most enthustically with me. (My grandmother gets upset because he won't "sing" with her but she doesn't pick him up so that's why he won't do it.)
When Ace and I get going with our wolf-song, my dad gets angry, puts his hands over his ears, glares at us and will eventually get up and leave the room or shout for us to shut up. Whenever the dog barks that's his reaction. And Ace doesn't bark any louder or more than Alf and Alf's barking never bothered my dad.
Last week I planned to go somewhere different for Friday lunch with my mom, since my dad was supposed to be at the Senior Center. But he got kicked out so he came along for pizza. It's a fun place decorated with pictures of old cars which he should have liked. I used to go to school with the guy who opened it (he doesn't own it anymore) and my dad worked with his dad back when the two of us were born. Of course my dad couldn't remember that. They have a nice little lunch special of a personal pizza w/ 2 toppings, soda and salad for $6 when usually the pizza alone is $7.25 (no toppings). And I had a coupon for $2 off.
Literally it took 25 minutes for us to get my father to decide what he wanted. He wanted a tuna sandwich. I said no, that if he ordered that I would just leave because I wouldn't be able to eat. We showed him the chicken and broccoli pasta, which he likes everywhere. No, he wanted the goddamn tuna fish. Tuna is so repulsive to me that just thinking about it makes me gag. My mom tried to get him to order a lunch special with us. He couldn't understand what it was. We ordered garlic bread with cheese while we argued with him. He twice started to get up to walk home because he couldn't have his stinking fish. Then he said he would go sit across the room "since you don't want me here." I explained that I want HIM there, just not TUNA FISH. We were going to get him a cheese-only pizza but he couldn't understand what the cheese was. We said "it's what's on the garlic bread" (of course he had taken one bit of a piece and thrown it aside in disgust) and he said "no, I don't want that." So we ordered him a sauce-only pizza. He ate his salad with double dressing (ew) and then when the pizza came he didn't like it because it had no cheese and he ate my mom's pizza instead, which had cheese and meatballs on it.
This week we went to Friendly's. Again with the tuna fish and the fight over it. The one time we let him get tuna there and I didn't eat and ended up leaving, driven away by the stench, he got very upset. But he can't remember that. We offered him a choice of a couple of things on the menu but his finger kept going back to the tuna. Finally I just ordered something else for him that I knew he'd eat. We got mozzarella sticks and for some reason he hates them, and when the waitress put a plate in front of him to eat off of he said "no, no" like we were poisoning him. He used to eat them, once upon a time. At least they don't stink. It's the stench of fish that offends me. Eat it all you want, but I don't want to smell what you're eating from across the room.
Only a small bit of AD news. Scientists have tinkered with mouse brains so that the cells shed the plaque before it kills them.
By tinkering with an enzyme in the brains of mice afflicted with the rough equivalent of Alzheimer's in humans, scientists were able to improve the rodents' memories. ... the new research expands on previous findings that suggested a shortage of an enzyme in the brain may be connected to Alzheimer's. The enzyme, known as Uch-L1, appears to be crucial to a cell's ability to get rid of malformed proteins and maintain memory.
Living in the Shadow of Alzheimers
4 years ago
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