Never Mind

My dinner took place under unusual circumstances tonight.

I went to get a much-needed haircut, and while I was out, I bought groceries. Ordinarily, my dad goes with me when I get groceries, and I don’t like to cut him out of the experience, but I put in a lot of time dealing with him and his problems today, and I needed some relief.

I am never going to take him to my barber shop. I enjoy the barber shop, and he would ruin it for me. I have never told him its name or where it is. He tried to pin me down once, and I was evasive. He will never see the inside of that place. If he wants a barber, I’ll take him to the Mexican place on Highway 484.

When I got back, he started trying to get me to take him out for food. The kitchen was full of newly bought food, so he didn’t need anything. He was just bored. That’s understandable, but it’s not justification for adding to my burdens.

My dad pesters me when he’s bored. He comes up with strange projects, or he brings me trivial problems. These things are pretexts for disturbing me. He finds it entertaining to deal with these things in partnership with me. The problem with this is that he comes up with many of these things every day, and almost all of them are a waste of time, not to mention somewhat stressful for me.

He would like to go out for food at least twice a day, and that will never happen, because I would not be able to stand it. He will have to settle for three times a week.

Today he started telling me we should eat meals together. No, no, no, NO. Not possible. His table manners are unbelievable. I have to be careful where I look. If there is no music playing, I have to listen to a lot of mouth sounds. That’s bad, and worse spectacles are not out of the question. Also, conversation can be a problem. He says things he knows annoys me, which is not great for my digestion.

It’s a job, not a meal.

I had to tell him I need a certain amount of time to myself. I had to let him know that whenever I’m with him, I’m working. If he’s present, I’m not relaxing. I’m taking care of him. I can’t do it 24 hours a day.

He said I didn’t take care of him. He said he looked after himself, and he asked me what I do for him, so I gave him a list. I clean his house. I change his bed. I launder his clothes. I take care of his business and his taxes. I take care of his health problems, including going to the doctor with him. I mentioned a lot of things. I didn’t do it in an angry way. I said it with patience.

He said I benefited from all these things, because I would inherit everything he has. I told him changing his sheets didn’t benefit me, and I listed other tasks that don’t benefit me, either. It really doesn’t matter whether what I do benefits me. It’s still burdensome.

Then he said, “Is it all right if I just kill myself?”

This is how his personality works. My sister is the same way. They try to put you on the defensive. When it doesn’t work, if they have to accept any responsibility or blame, they go off the deep end and accuse you of attacking them.

In his mind, by saying I did a lot for him and needed time off, I was saying he was a worthless, selfish piece of two-legged excrement who ought to be executed.

He said I was complaining. Complaining would be 100% justified, but my motive was not to complain. It was to make him understand why I can’t spend more time with him. I told him having to do things for him was just part of life.

I haven’t done anything wrong. Not one thing. I know better than to pay attention to the emotionalism and histrionics.

I went to my private lair to eat, and a few minutes later, he called up the stairs. He said he wanted to have a talk with me. I told him I was eating. He asked if we could talk when I was finished, and I agreed.

He wanted to correct me. He wanted to sit me down and badger me and demand answers until I admitted I was wrong to not enjoy spending every waking moment with him. That sounds like a joke, but it’s exactly what he wanted to do. He also wanted to cross-examine me until I admitted he didn’t have dementia. He tries that a lot.

I finished eating maybe 20 minutes ago. I’ve been relaxing with Youtube. I have no intention at all of talking with him. I never did. I’m waiting for him to forget.

It’s the smart move. Talking to a demented person with unfounded grievances is a complete waste of time and an emotional drain. There is no possibility whatsoever that I’m going to agree to spend more time with him; if anything, I will have to spend less and less time with him in order to preserve my sanity and get things done. Even if I lost my mind and agreed with him, it wouldn’t matter, because later today, he would forget all about it.

I’m not sure why I treat him with so much respect. It’s just a habit, I suppose. People who deal with demented individuals and mental patients generally patronize and say whatever helps at the moment, no matter how fanciful it may be. I don’t do that. I usually talk to him as though he were of sound mind, and I try to help him understand things. Sometimes it’s not possible to treat him like an adult, but when it is, I indulge myself. When I told him spending time with him was taxing, I was treating him like a rational person.

He has to come to understand that he has a terminal illness and serious mental problems that are going to get worse. Even a demented person needs to know what’s happening to him. I suppose that isn’t true of profoundly demented people, but my dad is still capable of understanding what’s going on with him. He refuses to come to terms with it because his style, all his life, has been to get emotional and angry and deny his problems.

It’s disappointing.

When my mother found out she had given herself lung cancer, she didn’t lash out. She didn’t deny it was true. She never blamed anyone else. She didn’t cry and scream and curse God for picking on her. I suppose this is the long way of saying she didn’t act the way my sister acted when she got her own lung cancer diagnosis.

My sister lost her mind. The universe, which was created solely for the purpose of displaying her magnificence to a supporting cast of billions, was about to end with her demise. She went into denial. She burdened other people. She felt wronged, even though she had smoked a hundred pack/years of cigarettes and had not bothered to get medical insurance. She borrowed money for treatment and never offered to repay it. She openly demanded pampering and special privileges. My dad isn’t that bad, but he’s not exactly taking it like John Wayne.

It would be nice if everyone took misfortune in a way that increased your respect for them. My mother proves it can be done. Lots of people handle fatal diseases well. I would love to be able to tell people how tough my dad is. That must be nice.

Last night, my friend Mike told me things about hospice care. He has his own medical staffing company, and he is starting a hospice. I learned some surprising things.

I thought a hospice was a sort of bed and breakfast where you go to die. That’s true, but hospice care is more than that. If you’re a mess, and like my dad, you’re going to get worse and die, you can be evaluated and found eligible for in-home hospice care. They will send people to your home several times a week to bathe you and so on, and they will free up your caregivers. Medicare and insurance will cover it.

Hearing the word “hospice” was a little sobering. It was the first time anyone had mentioned it with respect to my dad.

My dad is dying. His heart keeps pumping, and he looks surprisingly good for his age, but his brain is coming to pieces, and at a certain point, it will no longer be able to keep his body going. I tend to think of my dad as a senile person who has to be managed, but in reality, he’s in the same boat as people like John McCain and Charles Krauthammer. He has a fatal disease.

I tend to think in terms of maintenance instead of preparing for death. Maybe that’s because maintenance is so challenging and time-consuming. If I had more time to think about it, I suppose I would be trying to plan more. I know how to look after the man my dad is today, but what about the man he will be next month? That person may not be able to use the toilet or get out of bed. What will I do?

I’ve been thinking about moving him to assisted living in the future, but that’s probably wrong. Assisted living is for people with physical problems. If your brain is fine but you can’t get out of bed without help, assisted living is for you. I don’t think it’s right for someone who is losing his mind rapidly. I’m told there are “memory centers” for people with memory issues. I don’t know if they’re for people who are sinking quickly or just relatively stable people who aren’t as sharp as they used to be.

A few days ago, I took him to lunch, and he got a doggie bag. As he walked out into the parking lot, he blew his nose without a handkerchief. He held the bag of food in his cane hand as he applied a finger to his nostril. A thick glob of snot about 4 inches long swung out of his nose and onto the bag and his hand. It would have filled a shot glass halfway. He didn’t care who was watching. He didn’t remember the many times I’ve cautioned him not to do what he was doing. The worse his mind gets, the less he’ll fit in with able people. He’ll have to be isolated from them in order to avoid making them suffer.

I am not a fan of people who inflict their disabled relatives on the public. If you have an autistic son who screams over and over, you don’t take him into a movie theater. It’s that simple. If your wife has an illness or disability that makes her revolting to watch, you don’t take her to Ruth’s Chris and put her in a prominent seat where other diners have to see her. You have to have consideration for other people. I’m not going to ask waitresses to clean up urine or mucus. I’m not going to ruin people’s meals just so my dad can enjoy a night out. When things get really bad, he will have to have a change in environment.

This will make him unhappy, and there will be nothing anyone can do about that.

Some people have to be unhappy. Welcome to Earth.

It’s a shame he has been so defiant and spiteful about bad manners all his life, because now he is stuck with habits that will shorten the time he can spend among able people. He needs to be around other human beings, and his young self has fixed things so his helpless older self will get less contact.

When he was a powerful lawyer, he could force people to put up with whatever he did. He could call younger attorneys things like “fart sack” in front of other employees. Things are not the same now. No one has to put up with a dementia sufferer with a durable power of attorney. He can’t adjust to having to show consideration. When his extraordinary behavior offends other people, he gets angry and thinks they’re wrong.

I’m going to go down and see what he remembers.

I’m back. He’s fine. Happy as a lark. I gave him some clean shirts and socks, and he’s putting them away. He doesn’t remember wanting to have an argument with me.

I wish he had been able to let things go this quickly when I was a kid. He never forgot or forgave anything, and he could yell at a person about the same thing until dawn.

I am engaged in the weirdest experience in my life. No one can prepare you for this.