He’s Still in There

In defiance of dementia: GiaB prompt # 2–5 — the elderly

The day after Christmas was my parents’ 47th anniversary.

Mom did not feel like celebrating.

Dad no longer knows what an anniversary is. He doesn’t know who his wife is. He doesn’t know what a wife is.

For the past three years, up until last August, Dad had been in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and well into the denial that goes with the dreaded diagnosis.

Copping only to a tad of “memory trouble,” he continued to work. His law partners didn’t have the heart to let him go; they scrambled to unscramble the documents that Dad had made mess of.

Dad was prescribed Aricept, which slows progression of dementia, staving off the inevitable for a year or so.

Dad still enjoyed an active life; he swam and cycled. He and my mother enjoyed restaurants, theater, and travel.

Last August, Dad had double bypass surgery and a valve replacement. We found out afterwards that patients may suffer weeks of agitated confusion after eight hours on a heart-lung machine while under deep anesthesia.

Discounting rare cases of brain damage resulting from cardiac arrest during surgery, patients who emerge from anesthesia with scrambled brains eventually return to their normal state.

Except Alzheimer’s patients.

Had they been informed, my parents still may have opted for surgery. Dad would have been miserable had he been forced to curtail his activities; it would have been nerve-racking to live under threat of heart attack besides.

As it turns out, Dad fast-forwarded to the middle stage of Alzheimer’s. He wasn’t bed-ridden, unresponsive, and incontinent as are patients in the final stage. Dad remains mobile, reactive, and toilet-savvy; nonetheless, he is utterly demented.

Mom had brought him home a week post-surgery, after pushing for early discharge in the hope that familiar surroundings would reorient and calm him.

The short-staffed hospital was relieved to have a needy patient off their hands and didn’t discourage my mother from taking him home prematurely.

After an auspicious hour of tranquility, Dad became increasingly agitated. He kept my mother up all night with trips to the toilet and with continuous pacing.

He rummaged through the garbage can, tossing dinner scraps onto the table whence they came.

The following morning, spying a wicker basket of seashells, he poured milk atop the pile, and commenced to enjoy a leaky bowl of Cap’n Crunch.

After a second sleepless, night Mom hired an aide to tend Dad at night. Dad persisted to seek her out despite the aide’s efforts to distract him.

Mom switched to a daytime aide so that she could escape the house; the aide fell asleep, leaving Dad to wander.

After a brief stint in a geriatric ward, where his condition was deemed hopeless, doctors pressed Mom to seek placement in a nursing home.

There were waiting lists and paperwork. Mom had to guarantee funds for two years; the annual cost was a hundred thousand dollars.

I visited Dad the day after his move to the nursing home. On that day I witnessed glimmers of clarity, even astuteness.

Upon my arrival, Dad was fox-trotting with the social director. Mom considered Dad a mediocre dancer; I was delighted to see him holding his own.

Afterwards, the group played “trivia.” First question: Who wrote the poem “Trees”?

Dad burst out: “Trees” is the worst piece of crap poem ever written!

He’d often disparaged “Trees”; I was gratified he disliked it as much as ever.

On a “good” day, Dad will talk at great length, with apparent coherence, of what he did the night before. Though his tale is plausible, it is confabulated.

For instance, Dad said he’d had “a very unpleasant evening on the subway” because his phone wouldn’t work.

Dad hasn’t been on the subway for months, nor does he have a cell phone. Dad hated all phones; he was frustrated by mechanical and electronic devices. He hasn’t changed!

Dad mostly speaks words strung together in nonsensical phrases. Sometimes he’ll babble gibberish.

Dad was always well-liked; the staff are fond of him; the residents adore him, particularly the ladies.

“Charles has lots of girlfriends,” said one of the staff, with a wink. “Everybody loves Charles.”

He’s still in there.

This piece was written in 2001. My father died on June 27, 2003.