My parents have always done everything together

[Diane]

My mother is 86 and in good physical health. I have an 83 year old father that is in worse physical health than my mother, but has his right mind and can still drive and get around-slow but can still manuver. Mother has demetia, which i believe has turned in to alhimerzer(sp?). She is on Aricept,Namenda and Cuminduan (blood thinner) and has been for years. She is usually good in the mornings and knows who we are and can talk somewhat intelligently, but she has the hardest time from 3:00 til bed time. She begs to go “home”., sometimes thinks she has kept the grandchildren who are now grown and she does not know who we are. She will ask “where’s daddy? Does he know i’m here? Is he coming to stay here tonight?” All the time Daddy is sitting right next to her on the couch. All these questions are asked several times from 3 to bedtime. My parents have been married 63 years and have always done EVERYTHING together. My dad never went anywhere without my MoM and now he is the one who is really having a difficult time with her problem. HE does not understand why she is fine – almost completely sane in the mornings and from 3 to bedtime- as he says she’s “Crazy”. They still live in the same house they have lived in for 60 years and my sister and myself go there daily-i get mama up in the morning, feed breakfast to both, give medicine and almost every day i dress mama. We do have someone to come in 2 times a week to stay and help with dressing and watching them from 9-2. My sister comes in afternoon and feeds them supper, medicine and get’s mama ready for bed. This is when she is experiencing the sundown syndrome. I ususally come over at 5:00 from work to see what is going on because we do not want my daddy to get frustrated with her as he most of the time does. We are trying to tell him to go along with her. for example, she’ll say, “where are the babies, i can find them.” I will then say, “Oh their mama came and carried them home a few minutes ago.” This usually satisfies her. Then she may ask, Does Daddy know i’m over here? ” I will say “yes he knows” She will say, “How do you know? ” I will then tell her that i talked with him and he said it was ok for her to be here and that he would be here soon. Again she is satisfied. BUT the problem is that if and when we are not there and she ask the off-the-wall questions, he tells her like it is. He does not pretend with her. He will tell her that there has not been any babies here at all. Some times he gets so agravated that he will finally say to her that she is crazy. In fact he says we are lying to her, which i do not consider myself lying. My parents are good christian people and my daddy does not want to do anything wrong. I am a christain also, but in cases like this i do not consider this a lie. I know she believes what she is saying and to keep her from getting upset and start crying, we need to go along with her. Now sometimes she will get her shoes on and say she is going home and we do have to handle that different. we just cant let her go outside alone. But then we think of something else like “stay here and daddy will be here for you soon.” ANY THING we can do to keep her happy. As most of you have heard the saying, “IF MAMA’S HAPPY THEN EVERYONES HAPPY”. that is more truer today in our life than ever before. Again as some of you are experiencing, i am having trouble believing this is actually happening to our lives. My mother has always be very active and a peoples person. She was the best cook in town and now does not even know how to boil water. She was always very concern about her clean house and dressed very well, Now she is not even aware about any of it. I know i’ve gone on and on, but i just stumbled on this site also and i guess i had to vent. My mom was the glue that held our family together and this is just so hard for our family. She has always begged not to be sent to a rest home and by the help and grace of God we are trying to do all we can not to send her. Of course we do not know what the future holds, but i pray that God in his mercy will take her home before we ever have to make that decision. Maybe that is selfish, but i know that is the way she would want it to be. For all of you who are going thru this nightmare, just take one minute at a time and learn to call out to God for his help–for He is the only one who can. He has been there with us and he will you too if you will just call on Him.
Sorry i’ve gone on and on.

[Lori]

It's o.k. I think you are doing great. I have to take care of my mom the same way. It is not in my nature to lie, but when she asks strange questions and I know the answers will trigger a bad response or cause anxiety I make something up that calms her. I moved my whole family into her house a year and a half ago. I promised to take care of her always. She took care of her mother w/altz. too. It was hard for my kids and husband to understand the necessity of lying to her about stuff but they finally caught on. They tried to talk logically to her but of course it doesn't work that way.   I feel keeping her in her home is familiar for now and eases anxiety. But we are also still able to go on vacation trips together for relaxation.

[Lori]

actually I think god sent you for us. You give me hope. Thanks. my husband and I are caregivers for my mom and his mom both in their 80's. Now my mom thinks my husband moved her mattress and harshly says  to him "we are gonna talk about this later' and we are scared because one other time she accused me of doing "you know what you did" and then struck me. We were surprised that time. So now we think she might get violent if we don't come up with a plausible response. I have been told by the doctors to call the police and have her taken to a mental ward if that happens again,(so she can get treatment) I think that would scare her more than anything. But my husband is upset because his mom see little kids playing outside that aren't there. I feel as you do, about caring for her until the end. We did it for my grandma. Just had to get that off my chest.