August 23 Dad's great escape

8/22/09

I’m beginning to wonder if it’s a mistake to take Dad out of his familiar surroundings. He’s still really disoriented and spent pretty much the whole day today peppering me with questions about where we are and what we’re doing here. At one point, I had finally gotten through to him that we are in Gloucester and then he said, “why don’t I just walk home?” and then I had to go through the whole explanation about how he lives in NYC and we’re going back there tomorrow. Then he thought he needed to find an apartment and a job in NYC!

Today we went to our house and visited with one of the tenants, and Dad had one of his “crazy” attacks where he seemed to know absolutely nothing. I was sitting at the table with him, answering question after question, and finally he said, “I’m scared,” and it was just too much for me and the tears started rolling down my cheeks and I couldn’t speak so Paul and Kate S. and Brianna had to pinch hit some of the questions for me. Eventually he came out of it, and was able to say that he had felt “crazy”.

I was exhausted when we got back to the motel and so was Dad, so we both took a nap. I must have been deeply asleep because I didn’t hear Dad get up, until I heard a stranger saying, loudly, “the bathroom isn’t here, you’re not in your room!” I jolted awake and discovered that Dad had gone through the room door instead of the bathroom door and was outside, by himself. Luckily, that door led to the parking lot and not the road, rocks and ocean on the other side, any one of which could have been a total disaster for Dad. That would have made a hell of a headline for the local small-town newspaper, where at least one front-page story is usually about fish: “Elder falls in ocean while caregiver sleeps!”

Kate S. and Brianna had the brainstorm of getting takeout and bringing it to the motel while Dad and I stayed behind, sparing him another trip and another new environment. After we ate, Dad went back into inquisition mode, and they headed off to bed, leaving me to answer another barrage of questions. One of the things that gets hard about Dad’s disoriented episodes is that even his ability to process language breaks down, so it’s hard to keep answering his questions and make yourself understood. For instance, he wanted to know what he would do when we got back to NYC, and I explained that lots of people would visit him. He wanted to know why people visited him, and I said, “because you’re a fun guy.” “I’m a sun god?” he asked, bewildered. “No,” I said, “you’re a fun guy.” “Spun guide?” he asked, even more confused, and on we went.

We’re leaving here tomorrow, and even though Gloucester is my “special place” and I love it here, it will be a relief to go. I can’t imagine being here without Dad, but I also can’t wrap my head around coming back with him, at least without a paid caregiver.