Understand I can only imagine what my father actually feels. I know this narrative is one-sided, comprised of my own thoughts and versions of the facts. That’s to be expected, but I do try to imagine how reality must appear to my father.
When the only artifacts of LBD consisted of fuzzy balls, dragonflies, and texture issues, it’s easy to imagine. Just remember your first major narcotic or alcoholic episodes when reality is easily manipulated. Imagine trying to eat your dinner but the visual of bugs makes it nearly impossible to put the food in your mouth. I can’t, but I know he dealt with it. We treated this condition as a side-effect of his tremor meds, with more meds. Those dried his mouth, giving him that frothy, dazed look. He used to get frustrated because of the see-sawing of the symptoms. This medicine fixes the tremors, but causes hallucinations. This medicine helps with the hallucinations, but reduces the effectiveness of the tremor meds. And so on…
It was late July of 2013. My father slowly degraded throughout the year, but remained ambulatory, appeared able to read, but couldn’t follow major instructions. He could bathe himself and move from room to room, but couldn’t read a Program Guide from the TV. Reading email, a favorite pastime for him, became an exercise in confusion needing almost daily assistance. “I’m all hung up” usually involved 20 or more open tabs in his browser from a Publishers Clearing House email.
Early on we opted for building out my brother’s garage as an apartment for him. After a day of all of us working to finish the last major items I took him home to give my brother and his wife a surprise Saturday night. The evening didn’t go well after a meal out, so we all went to bed.
As we got ready for church he complained of stomach problems. It progressed to the point we decided to take him home. The drive over he complained he felt like he needed to pee, so we stopped. He couldn’t go but we had no choice but to keep going. That night he ended up in the ER of a local hospital because he couldn’t urinate. Turns out instead of stomach issues from a nasty sub the night before, his bladder couldn’t empty.
After a few hours they patched him up, gave him a catheter, and some antibiotics for a UTI. I called him the next morning to see how he was feeling and found myself talking to someone I’d swear was drunk. He babbled, mumbled, said words that didn’t go together. Over the next 24 hours he devolved to some primal state. Fascinated with his catheter and in his worsening mental state, he fiddled with it constantly.
By the third day my father paced the house, naked in a robe, making no sense. In desperation they got him dressed and attempted to take him to the emergency room again, but he refused to go. He refused to leave with my brother until they called me. He wanted to know if they were bringing him to see me.
After some assurance from me, Dad became a little more pliable, but as they passed the knife block he reached for one of the knives. LBD offers one unexpected bonus, surprising energy.
They got the knife away from him easily, though. He then tricked my brother into going through the door first and tried shutting the door after him. A quick foot in the door jam saved the night from a total disaster. Forced to call the ambulance, they watched as three policemen and two EMTs coaxed my father out.
I arrived as he was sitting in the ambulance, restrained. I chatted a bit with him in calm tones, assured him we were safe. They took him away and that was my introduction to the new dad.