Biff! Ow! Slap! Hey!
By MP on Tuesday 10 October 2006, 17:48 - Journal - Permalink
That day, Sunday, Greg and Regan took their daughter Cassy and a feast of cakes and other items, over to mum and dad's place. Cassy is nearly eight, and is beginning to lose interest in the games she and mum used to play when she was younger. Mum just doesn't have the energy, inclination, or the mental agility to participate properly. Soon I expect a gulf to open up between them. However, the visit had been successful, and everyone had enjoyed themselves.
When dad called later it was, as Greg put it, to have a witness to the fight going on between him and mum. It was the same old scenario: she claims he is a stranger in her house and demands that he leaves, he reasons with her and refuses to budge, she gets so frustrated that she slaps him.
Dad and Greg talked for a while, with mum in the background arguing with how dad was reporting things. Dad then turned to concentrate on mum, putting the phone down without hanging up. Greg was thus able to listen in to about six minutes of mum and dad fighting.
Mum was vituperative and insistent that dad get out. Dad was driven to the point of telling her she was going berserk and would 'have to be put in a home'. This is quite at odds with how he claims to deal with mum, of course, and is a method almost certainly doomed to fail. Even though their voices were being raised, Greg could hear the sounds of someone being slapped - dad, I presume, at the hands of mum.
After a few minutes Greg hung up. It was too sickening to listen to.
Comments
Whew. I understand Greg's final reaction. This is very much how my aunt reacted to my uncle. She was demented. He was not. Despite his lack of dementia, he tried reasoning with her repeatedly, just as your dad does, until he couldn't stand the disturbance and disorientation, anymore, and put her "in a home". You may have read this elsewhere but it bears repeating: Once she was sufficiently "facilitated", they were both happy. He visited her everyday, they got along famously (she may no longer have considered him her husband), and were both much relieved.
I don't know whether to recommend this solution, though. There was a catch. After my aunt became suddenly demented post-surgery, the family moved from one long-lived-in home to another, so there was not the trauma of her being separated from a deeply familiar environment when she was placed in a facility. Interestingly, although I don't know if this would apply to your situation, she also experienced no trauma after the move from familiar family home to new family home. She didn't seem to notice the difference.
For reference, if you need it, it is unclear if my aunt suffered from Alzheimer's. Since the dementia surfaced suddenly, it's hard to say. At first, her dementia was diagnosed as stemming from severe malnutrition due to severe alcoholism. Later, though, her immediate family began to refer to it as Alzheimer's, except for one in-law member, a nurse, who suspected that something occurring during surgery may have precipitated it.