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Conversation with Dad

<background information>  I wouldn't say Dad is lazy, but when he was a young man, his mother had to tell him to "put that book down and get a job."  She had to threaten to throw him out of the house if he didn't do something besides sit around and read.  He's been like that ever sense. Ok, I would say he is lazy.

Today:

"I'm barely alive, that is what I am."

My response--You don't have to be.  Get out of your chair and DO something, and you'll be more alive.

I guess the child really does become the parent.

Plateaus and Valleys

Dad seems to plateau--stay the same--for a long time, then he takes a sudden downhill turn.  He is in a downhill phase right now.

For a while now, Dad has occasionally started to undress in the family room when he thought we were taking too long to put him to bed.  Tonight for the first time Dad undressed BEFORE dinner.  He took off his suspenders and pants, unbuttoned his shirt, and removed it.  He left his clothes in a pile in Mama's chair.  Then he came to the table wearing only his undershirt, diaper, and leg wraps with his plastic pants around his knees.  I guess it was a good thing he shuffles because he couldn't have walked without tripping on his plastic pants.

I re-dressed him and let him come back to the table.  I had already put the salads on the table, so he started eating on his before dinner was ready. Now for as long as I can remember, Dad has liked bacon bits (imitation) on his salad.  Tonight, he decided that they were too hard to chew and spit them out.  He left them in a nasty pile on the table next to his salad bowl. 

Dad likes to wash his food down with milk or tea.  Because of his fluid retention problems and his chronic congestive heart failure, we have to limit the amount he drinks.  Tonight, before he even started eating his food, he picked up his milk glass and drained most of it before I could stop him.  Then, since he didn't have much milk, he had a harder time eating his dinner.

He used his fingers to eat almost everything tonight, including salad and English peas.  The only piece of silverware he consistantly used tonight was his spoon for his pudding. I guess as long as it is just family, it doesn't really matter.  At least he is faster eating with his fingers instead of trying to use a fork and carrying an empty fork to his mouth.

Words of Wisdom

Bits from Dad over the past week:

"I like my tongue.  That is what I do."  "I use my tongue to talk.  That is what I do."  "If I didn't have my tongue, I couldn't talk.  That is what I could not do."

"I am not Chinese.  That is what I am not."  "I am an American.  That is what I am."

"I have an overabundace of facial hair.  That is what I have."

"I am a cranky old man. That is what I am."  "If I grew a beard, I could be a cranky grandfather.  That is what I could be."

"I will live a long time.  That is what I will do."  "My parents lived to be over 100 years old.  That is what they did."  "I will live to be over 100 years old.  That is what I will do."

Pressure Sores

Since Dad is very sedentary, he is prone to pressure sores.  For years, the sores have been on his backside because not only did he sit in a chair all day (refusing any kind of exercise or activity), he sat all night sleeping in his chair.  We have been able to keep them under control by using hosptial-grade diapers that keep him drier and special skin cream for early-stage pressure sores.

Very shortly after we started making Dad sleep in the bed, a pressure sore began developing on his heel.  We used the cream that works for his sores on his backside and put a pillow under his calves to lift his heels off the bed.  Although Dad doesn't move any more than he has to, he was able to get the pillow out from under his legs.  His heels were down on the bed, and he developed a serious pressure sore.  We took him to his regular doctor who referrerd him to a wound specialist. 

The wound specialist prescribed several things, including compression bandages for both legs.  We had been putting surgical socks on Dad, but that wasn't enough.  Since my mother-in-law has for years put a pillow next to her feet to keep the pressure of the covers off her feet, we wanted to try that too to see if that would help also.  My husband built a cage to lift the blankets just off his feet. 

All was going pretty well, just taking more time to get him up in the morning and in bed at night, until yesterday morning.  When my husband came downstairs at 5:30 a.m. (our usual time), a wave of poop smell hit him.  In the night, Dad had thrown off all the covers, undressed himself from the waist down, and ripped off the compression bandages.  Poop was everywhere.  It took my husband over an hour to get him cleaned up. 

Obviously Dad can move around a lot more than he usually does when he really wants to...