 |
 |
Dear Alan Bonander & Charles Meyer: Many thanks for your answers and your concern. Unfortunately, or fortunately, my father is rather frail, almost blind and doesn't seem to have the strength or the desire to be physically abusive. As I may have mentioned, he has other health problems in addition to Parkinsons, such as glaucoma in one eye and a hopefully eradicated cancerous growth in his other eye for which he recently underwent 6 weeks of radiation. Also, he has had heart problems since age 39, when he had a heart attack and had bypass surgery a year or two be- fore he was diagnosed with PD. We "children" and especially my mother, never dared to hope he'd live to be 78. If he were reading this, he'd say "if you can call this living!" Not to make light of his behavior problems, it is mostly the mental anguish that my mother (and we who love him) is feeling at having 'lost' this warm, wonderful, loving man full of charm and humor, at least during these episodes. And in her case, the pain of having him yell at her and act like she's against him rather than for him. He does exhibit confusion quite often, too, not knowing who my mother is, thinking he's somewhere other than home when he's not, not remembering if he ate breakfast, etc. WE, the three 'kids', are trying to help mother as much as possible, but of course, my brother and sister both have full time jobs and families and live an hour away. I live 5 minutes away but I have two children ages 1 and 3, so I can't do nearly as much as I'd like to to relieve her. She has tried having people come in to help so she can go out for short periods, but my father gave her reason to possibly mistrust the most re- cent aide and although he may have been having hallucinations, she wouldn't risk his being upset by leaving him with the same person again. We are trying to find someone to be in their home for some night-time hours so she can possibly get some uninterrupted sleep and yet not leave him altogether. For more information for Alan and Charles and also for anyone else who might have some input (Camilla Flintermann, I'm preparing an answer to your reply, but my husband printed it at work and forgot to bring it home) my mother helps bathe and dress my dad and takes him out every day almost without fail, just for a change of scenery. Of course they have lots of doctor apptments, errands, shopping to attend to, but sometimes she just takes him to a mall to have a cappucino that he likes and to walk a bit. He's not up to too much of anything, but she helps him enjoy what he can. My times up and the children need me so I will not ramble anymore. Thank you all once again for your interest, help and support. Betti S. Adams Eric M. Adams [log in to unmask]