The Dementia Triangle

When England joined the second world war, there was a time, after Dunkirk, when the war was distant.  Germany was busy on the continent, there was no fighting, no bombing, all was relatively quiet.  This was called the Phoney war.  This happens with dementia.  This happened with dad.  From the beginning, dad began to do things without my knowledge, but he was getting ready.  He knew his memory was failing.  None of us (family) knew, we were simply too caught up in our own lives.  But dad knew.  I found out two years later that he had not paid his annual fees for his architectural license.  When I say dad was an architect, I mean that architecture was his ontological reality.  He WAS an architect.  To cancel his license meant that he knew all too well what was coming, and that he could not trust himself to carry on his beloved profession.

This phoney period is fraught with danger, but also a joy of sorts.  Dad finally, as I covered in my first post, called me in and gave me control of all his business and personal affairs.  I gained two new jobs, he gained freedom.  For the first three years, from 2017 to 2020, Dad lived life.  He ate out every meal, he was constantly in motion.  He became Norm (if you have seen “Cheers” you get it) to several local establishments.  He made friends, he kept several bartenders well paid, he lived life.  This was fun, but this also could get ugly.  Dad loved his wine, and in his right mind he was like most of us and knew when enough was enough.  Now imagine if we could not count.  Imagine if we could not remember if this was our second glass or our fourth.  As time went by, dad became known for being the local drunk.  I placed a GPS on his car, and hooked his phone to mine, every night at 6pm I was on my phone finding where dad was.  This was a difficult time for me, as all the family was calling for me to take his keys.  I knew if I did so it would start his decline, as dad is an extrovert, he cannot be placed in his house alone with nowhere to go without consequences. 

So, I got to know his normal stops.  I got to know the owners and the wait staff, I handed out cards, they all had my number.  If dad was overserved, they would call me, and I became his Uber.  This was far from a perfect solution.  There were several times that dad was allowed to drive when he should not have.  There were several times when I was with him, and he was not on his best behavior in a restaurant.  There was one time that he spent the night on his driveway, as he forgot how to use his garage door opener.  But he was happy, and that made me happy.  It is hard to watch parents die in slow motion, and every little smile you can get out of them is worth the embarrassment of bad behavior in public, and certainly worth being dad’s ride home.

But this is phoney.  It is in fact a dangerous time.  For dad, for others, and for me.  Dad would grab people thinking them friends, and I became his bodyguard more than once.  Fortunately, I avoided any physical confrontation, but there were tense moments. 

In hindsight, though it was phoney, I don’t think I would change anything I did.  I have seen men go into memory care early.  They have most of their faculties, and their eyes just scream defeat.  Waiting for the inevitable.  I could not do that to my father, and if I had it to do over, I would make the same choices.  I will say, that if this disease is genetic, and falls to me, I hope I have the fortitude to place myself in a memory care unit and spare my kids the phoney period.