5/10/10

5/10/10

Dad couldn't sleep last night and was so fussy that an increasingly desperate Jaelynn resorted to the ice cream distraction three times during the night! He told Jaelynn “My ass hurts and the asshole is gone.” This seems to be a reference to his back pain, which we think is down by his tailbone.

Tonight he seems to be over it, though he did go through a period of agitation, where he kept repeating “I'm scared as hell. I'm scared to death all the time.” Though he couldn't directly answer me when I asked what he was afraid of, I got a clue when he said “I'll fall overboard and die,” and another clue when he said “what scares me all the time is that I'm lost, I'm lost, I'm lost.” My reassurances that we wouldn't let him get hurt or lost didn't help much.

Even once he calmed down, being lost was still a recurring theme in his conversation tonight. At one point he said, “in common, ordinary language, I wouldn't know where I was,” which could have referred to his being physically lost or to his being “lost” in language when his speech gets jumbled up. Later he said, “Where am I?” “In New York City, in your apartment, in the bedroom,” I answered, routinely. “Not entirely,” said Dad, leaving me stunned into silence since it often does seem as though he's only partially in this reality and the rest of him is somewhere else.

Jaelynn and Suzy rearranged Dad's bedroom, moving his bed against the wall so he can only get out of one side, reducing his chances of falling out, and creating more space in the center of the room so the wheeled walker and wheelchair can maneuver better. Even though the new layout is a lot more functional, I wonder if the change is related to last night's fussiness and today's lost feeling.

Dad seemed to be wrestling with something, so I just let him sit and think, and finally he said, in a serious tone, “if you're completely blind, you're pretty blind, right?”

I got stuck in the subway today due to a track fire, so Dawson wound up alone with Dad after the home attendant left. Having observed us and helped with his own grandfather, he did a good job, even emptying the commode. When I got here Dad was comfortably settled into the recliner and he's enjoying it so much that he's been sitting there for four hours now! When I sat on the bed next to him, Dad said to me, “you're a character, aren't you?” “So are you!” I told him, laughing. If I'm a character, I certainly come by it honestly.