Good and Bad
Feb. 25th, 2012 03:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captain_slinkyIt took till about 1am for me to feel comfortable enough with my Dad's activity level tonight where I finally let myself unfold the hide-away bed and consider sleeping. From my vantage point in the living room I had been able to see him get up 2 or 3 times already since 9pm to go use the bathroom and then go right back to his room, I figured he was down for the night. And besides, the hide-a-bed is right next to his bedroom... he wouldn't be able to get up without me knowing about it.
I got the bed all set up with my great-grandmother's hand-made quilt and a couple of flat, angry pillows, and tried to fall asleep while listening to the TV in my Dad's room fight against the sound of my sister snoring at HER tv down the hallway. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to fall asleep.
And then my Dad was standing in the kitchen, wearing nothing but his tighty-whitey underwears and a set of keys in his hand. "Oh, hello there!" I said.
My Dad gave a wave of acknowledgement and said "Lookin' for my watch".
He had handed me his watch earlier in the evening when he decided to take a bath. "Oh I remember! You handed it to me when you took your bath! Hang on..."
And so we went searching for his watch. Our search took us in to the Bathroom and then back in to the kitchen, where he noticed the giant pile of cookies that my Sister had baked for him.
"Beth made those for you! There's Peanut-butter ones in the cookie jar, and those ones on the counter are Oatmeal"
He offered me a cookie. "Nah, it's 2:30 in the morning... I don't need any more cookies this morning".
He laughed. Then he and I looked down at his other-non-cookie-wielding hand to notice the fact that he had the keys to his truck in his hand.
We went back to his bedroom to look for his watch some more, then got side-tracked by putting his bed back together. Once the bed was made he said "Well don't worry about it, we'll find the watch in the morning"; he was ready to give up on looking for the watch and just go back to sleep.
That sounds kind of bad, a man suffering from Dementia about to take a 2am drive in naught but his tighty-whitey underwear and a wrist watch, but it's actually a REALLY GOOD SIGN.
Usually, his nightime roaming for the first few days home from the hospital are "Patterns"; he shuffles as if on auto-pilot from his bed to his chair, chair to bed, bed to kitchen... completely unresponsive to anyone or anything. If you ask him a question he'll just grunt if he even acknowledges you at all. If anything is in his path he'll just walk right through it. It's kind of like sleep walking, only there's no dream to it.
But this was VERY different. This was him, completely responsive and coherent, just having one of those times where you wake up from a dream and you can remember there was... there was SOMETHING you were doing or that you HAD to do, and then the further away from your bed you get, the less of your mission you remember.
I got the bed all set up with my great-grandmother's hand-made quilt and a couple of flat, angry pillows, and tried to fall asleep while listening to the TV in my Dad's room fight against the sound of my sister snoring at HER tv down the hallway. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to fall asleep.
And then my Dad was standing in the kitchen, wearing nothing but his tighty-whitey underwears and a set of keys in his hand. "Oh, hello there!" I said.
My Dad gave a wave of acknowledgement and said "Lookin' for my watch".
He had handed me his watch earlier in the evening when he decided to take a bath. "Oh I remember! You handed it to me when you took your bath! Hang on..."
And so we went searching for his watch. Our search took us in to the Bathroom and then back in to the kitchen, where he noticed the giant pile of cookies that my Sister had baked for him.
"Beth made those for you! There's Peanut-butter ones in the cookie jar, and those ones on the counter are Oatmeal"
He offered me a cookie. "Nah, it's 2:30 in the morning... I don't need any more cookies this morning".
He laughed. Then he and I looked down at his other-non-cookie-wielding hand to notice the fact that he had the keys to his truck in his hand.
We went back to his bedroom to look for his watch some more, then got side-tracked by putting his bed back together. Once the bed was made he said "Well don't worry about it, we'll find the watch in the morning"; he was ready to give up on looking for the watch and just go back to sleep.
That sounds kind of bad, a man suffering from Dementia about to take a 2am drive in naught but his tighty-whitey underwear and a wrist watch, but it's actually a REALLY GOOD SIGN.
Usually, his nightime roaming for the first few days home from the hospital are "Patterns"; he shuffles as if on auto-pilot from his bed to his chair, chair to bed, bed to kitchen... completely unresponsive to anyone or anything. If you ask him a question he'll just grunt if he even acknowledges you at all. If anything is in his path he'll just walk right through it. It's kind of like sleep walking, only there's no dream to it.
But this was VERY different. This was him, completely responsive and coherent, just having one of those times where you wake up from a dream and you can remember there was... there was SOMETHING you were doing or that you HAD to do, and then the further away from your bed you get, the less of your mission you remember.
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-25 09:57 pm (UTC)