Where Did My Dad Go?

 It has been a while since I last posted. It has been a busy time! Mom has decided to move into a retirement home and this has happened. She has been there for over two weeks and seems to have settled in. The staff have all been very supportive and are very friendly. It was a difficult decision and has left us with a lot to do. We sold the family car - both my parents no longer had a license to drive so the car just sat in their driveway. It is one of many changes that have come about because of dad's diagnosis. It al is happening too fast. Dad moved on December 9. Mom moved April 27. The past two weeks were spent preparing for a house sale where we got rid of a number of items from my parents home. The Restore Remove program came in on Thursday and cleaned up what remained in the home. This program may have saved my sanity. Every time I drove by my parent's home I would think of what lay ahead. There was so much to do.  Wednesday we meet with the real estate agent and the hou...

 Hello! On this final day of Alzheimer's awareness month, I thought I would make a brief post. It has been a rough seven plus weeks since we placed Dad. Mom continues to tell everyone that I pushed for the placement as well as letting them know I am attempting to push her out of her home.  Dad has faced three rounds of isolation and made it through all three, with the last one being the easiest of all. IT has been interesting visiting Dad, as I am never sure who I am going to see. It is easiest when my youngest daughter visits with me as Dad lights up and smiles the entire time. He seems to get upset when mom is with me.  Mom and I visited yesterday and Dad wanted to talk about directions and what was going on in the halls of his home. I think it frustrated mom as she did not understand why this topic was of interest when we were there. I have tried to explain that we need to go with the flow when we visit and let Dad lead the conversation even if we do not understand the...

It has been a while since I last posted. I have been meaning to but things got really busy. I am not just talking about Christmas holidays and lockdowns! I was helping mom with her groceries on a Friday morning in early December when the first call came. The LTC placement manager in our region knew that my parents were wavering on placement so we got a call to let us know that a phone call was coming. I was told we were going to be offered a placement at the home that was on the bottom of my mother's choice list. The call came the following Monday morning. We have been prepared and told what the procedure would be - an offer of a bed, three days to make a decision and then 5 to 7 days to prepare for the move. With COVID things had changed. We were given 24 hours to make a decision and then t move had to occur the following day. So, we had until Tuesday afternoon to make a decision and the move was to occur on Wednesday. The decision was simple. In our area there is a lengthy waitin...

 Good morning.... Just came back from helping my parents put up their artificial tree.  That was the easy part -  it seems every time I stop by their home (which seems to be daily) things seem to just slide down a steeper slope. At first it is difficult to see the changes that are taking place, they seem to be so gradual. Eventually you reach a point where the changes seem to slap you in the face to make sure that you realize how bad things are getting. Today was one of those days. Dad loves to watch sports on TV, baseball in the summer and hockey in the winter. He was able to navigate his television with no problems and would often be able to tell anyone when a game was on... even if I did not think their was a game! Eventually this began to change. Dad could no longer find games on television. He was not sure which channels the games would be on, even which channels would be showing a game. I made them a list of the sports channels theat are available on their TV and mo...

 This disease is awful. My father is going down a slippery slope and he is pulling my mother along behind him.  She is one year younger than he is and her health is starting to fail. A lot of it is because of the stress that watching and helping my father. It hurts to wake up every morning and not being sure what I am going to see when I stop by to visit. I talk to  mom every night to see how things went and I keep a log of what is happening. I am lucky that they only live a few blocks away! I have found an Alzheimer's/Dementia page on Facebook and have started following. IT is so difficult to read because it is World Wide and nobody  knows what advice to give because they are not sure of what supports are available in any one part of the world. So many people are struggling watching their loved on (LO) suffer. I want to say we are lucky as we do not see many of the behaviors that others have to deal with. We are not lucky because we are watching my dad no longer be ...

 It was not much of a shock when we were told about Dad's diagnosis. We knew that he was really struggling with conversations. We also knew he was having difficulty driving. When he had an accident both mom's and my first question was 'Did he cause it?' I guess we both hoped it would be caught by the police and that would start the process. That did not happen - Dad was not in the wrong in the accident, although we are not sure what had caused the problem.   I finally made a phone call and asked for some help. I am not sure of the sequence of events but I know it started with a phone call. I contacted LHIN (Local Health Integrated Network) and they arranged for someone to visit my parents in their home to test dad. The tester recommended that dad stop driving (she could not take his license - only the doctor could do that) and sent the report to the doctor. When we saw the doctor, who came to my hometown from a larger centre, we were given a diagnosis of Alzheimer's...

 My Father has Alzheimer's. He was diagnosed Five years ago but as I look back we have seen signs for many years.  I ignored the signs and refused to disrupt  my family's life. It was a huge mistake, I am  paying the price now as we attempt to place Dad and Mom is struggling to deal with him at home. We were a typical Canadian family. Dad worked as an electrician in a Chemical Mill, Mom as a meat clerk in a grocery store.  I was an only child and sailed through life freely not worrying about much. I got a good education and had an entire career as an educator. I got married to a wonderful supportive woman and have three wonderful children. I am now retired from my career and a full time caregiver for both my parents.  As I look back there are a number of things I should not have ignored that may have helped in my journey. A few years ago we started to see Dad struggle with driving his car. Dad was involved in an accident 14 years ago and when the police inf...