Dad started mixing his words - brush my boat, where's my dragon....It sounds humourous, and in fact taken on its own, it is humorous. But there were times when it's just sad.
Dad was struggling with what was happening to him.
Dad was struggling with what was happening to him.
He’d often say ‘I think I’m having problems with my memory’. I’d just say, ‘Yes you are Dad, but that’s cos you’re old. It’s an aged person’s problem.’ I didn’t see the point in telling him he had Alzheimers. Maybe I was wrong, but his diagnosis did not result in reams of information being laid at our doorstep about what to do and how to go about it.
Some days you could see his frustration with his condition. Imagine knowing that you know something, but you can’t for the life of you remember it…..
One day he called me into the kitchen, pointed at the gas hob and said ‘What is this thing for?’
It’s for cooking dad. You cook food on it.
That’s right. And what’s it called again.
It’s a gas hob Dad.
That’s right…
I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to find your understanding slipping away like that. To lose your ability to carry out simple, basic activities that you’ve done for years because the knowledge is there in the haze of your mind, you know it is, or it should be, but you just can’t grasp it and hold to the forefront of your thinking.
Before I left for Saudi, Dad was replacing intended words with others. For example,’ I have to go brush my boat’. (hair). It is very easy to dismiss him as being completely loopy when this happens and, when you can’t get the right words from him, or figure them out (Brush your boat Hiwi? What do you mean, I don’t know what mean by that?) and walking away.
I’m glad our family has the ability to see humour in this Dad's situation.
‘Why Dad are you going fishing? I thought you were going to church’.
‘Oh, is someone going fishing?’
‘No Dad, you’re going to church, but you better go brush your hair.’
‘Yes, that’s what I was doing. I’d like some fish though.’
The first time I saw him muddle his words so badly the sentence made no sense at all, he got frustrated. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t communicate his intent. I’m not sure if his frustration was because we could not understand him, or because he figured out he was using the wrong words.
Having difficulty following a conversation when people spoke too fast kicked in some time ago.
We got an email from my sister recently and she said that finally the nursing staff have realised that he needs time to compute what is being said.
If you don’t mind silence while computation is occurring and if you don’t mind repeating the information slowly in simple bite size pieces, you will get an answer eventually.
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