Stories from Caregivers: Elaine from ILLINOIS
IL
Elaine
FROM ILLINOIS
It started with the junk mail. My father, Curtis, a retired company Vice President of Finance, treated every solicitation as a bill to be paid. The piles of envelopes grew and covered every flat surface, and every tv tray, in the house. The telemarketers were promised checks. Con artists had money wired to them from the Western Union office at Jewel. Finally my husband and I stepped in. The world still considered Dad to be functional, so we were able to work with a lawyer and I was given Power of Attorney for both my parents. We set up a P.O. box so that we could screen all the mail. We sabotaged Dad's efforts to get to Jewel by blocking his car in with our car and "misplacing" our keys. We blocked phone numbers using the caller id. We even worked with a scam specialist in Maryland and provided evidence to help them shut down a con artist. Eventually, on one crisis-laden day, we cancelled Dad's credit card. Shortly after that, we had to take his car keys. One day my daughter found her grandfather in the kitchen about to drink some blue liquid out of a paper cup. We assumed it was a mouthwash cocktail, but we were never sure what was in it. She stopped him right before he took a sip. Another day we caught him eating an aspirin sandwich. That incident meant a trip to Urgent Care. After those incidents we set up our "Pandora's box." We got a locking cabinet and a padlock and put all cleaning products and medication in the box. It was inconvenient, but we had no more issues of possible poisoning. Eventually the challenges evolved into more physical care issues. My three-piece suit businessman father had to be guided through getting dressed so that his underwear would be UNDER his clothes, and not on the outside. If he got dressed on his own in the morning he would usually just put his clothes on over his pajamas, leading to some rather unusual outfits. For some reason, every day, he insisted on wearing a medal he had received in grade school for his service in the Safety Patrol. The official diagnosis was Multi-Infarct Dementia. (Our daughter called it "multi-old fart dementia.) I guess we were fortunate that Dad was mobile up until days before his death. We could guide him where he needed to go, talk him through the various activities of daily living, and not worry about issues related to lifting or carrying him. For 80 years Curtis was a contributing member of society - active professionally, in the community, and in his church. For the last 8 years of his life he seemed to be happy and comfortable most of the time. We are thankful for the time he spent on Earth with us.
