944 Rochester Strange

Saturday, October 28, 2006

I didn't get out of the house Tuesday as early as I'd planned. It's usually about a six hour drive to Rochester, and I wanted to get to Jay's father's house in time for dinner. I had been invited to stay there, but I prefer a hotel (I can keep my own hours), so I had a reservation nearby. I ended up calling from east of Syracuse to tell Jay's sister that I'd get there about seven pm. That was the first strangeness. SIL said that since Dad went to bed about 8, there was no point in my stopping by, so she assumed that I'd just go directly to my hotel and arrange for my own dinner.

Now, if it were anyone else, I'd say, well, there'd be an hour with him, and you'll be up later, right? But I long ago learned that when SIL says something, you simply accept. It's pointless and possibly even dangerous to question, suggest, or argue.

So I went to the hotel ... where the fire alarm went off at 10 pm, and blared for 45 minutes before the firemen turned it off. When it started, I had grabbed my jacket and purse and headed for the exit, but met some men coming up the stairs who said that the guy at the desk had said it was a false alarm and we could go back to our rooms. That bothered me. How could he be so sure it was a false alarm, without having checked upstairs? I don't know what the firemen did to decide they could turn the alarm off, but they didn't come upstairs, either. The only reason I decided to stay in the room was that my window opened onto the roof over the front door, so I had a backup escape route. (Well, the primary reason was that it was COLD outside.)

The next morning I went to Dad's. He was eating breakfast and didn't recognize me until SIL told him who I was. The first thing I noticed was that he was looking very frail, a lot more bent and unsteady on his feet. He has some dementia, but I'm not convinced it's Alzheimers.

One minute he and I would be having a good conversation about, oh, say the cycle of natural destruction, terraforming, and growth in the rainforest, and ten minutes later he'd decide (more like insist, over my protestations) that I was a security inspector with Homeland Security, interviewing him to get his views on what needs to be improved in Rochester. He argued that the street signs would confuse any emergency assistance from outside the area. He was very logical and reasonable in that argument, and also right - the Rochester metro area is a pastiche of small towns all schmushed seamlessly together, and each municipality has a different name for the same street, the street name changes at arbitrary points, and street signs are often absent, so even with a map it can be difficult to figure out what street you're on. The only strangeness in that conversation was that he didn't know who I was. Ten more minutes and he's telling me about how his hearing going, and vision so bad, and the iffy short-term memory, leaves him isolated and feeling that he has no control. Very aware and rational. Half hour later he's doing or saying something wildly irrational and very very strange, out of contact with his surroundings.

The good part is that he is apparently always pleasant and even-tempered. Which is interesting, because prior to his health problems, he was exacting, demanding, and irrascible.

I feel sorry for him. With the hearing and sight problems, he can't really read or watch TV. He used to go for long walks with his little dog every day, but is having difficulty walking now, so that's out. He has 24-hour caregivers, but I don't think they, like, read to him or whatever. So I guess he gets very little stimulation, dozes in his recliner most of the day. He does go to monthly luncheons with old coworkers and groups he used to be active in, so there's that. There's an elder center nearby that SIL tried to get him interested in a year or two ago, they have classes and field trips and activities, but I think he rejected that after deciding that the other elderly were, um, inane. I don't know what else can be done to make one day different from the day before.

The caregiver whom SIL had arrived to fire, being unaware that SIL was swooping in from Washington, had taken Dad on a 300-mile trip last weekend to visit her son in college. Of course Dad paid for the entire trip. SIL says he was so tired he slept all day Monday. When SIL fired the woman, she went through the kitchen and took all the food, claiming that she had paid for all of it.

I left at a little after 7 pm, when they were sitting down to dinner. I have a problem with my jaw at the moment, and can't chew, so I wasn't going to eat with them. By the way, note the time. The day before, 7 pm was too late for me to arrive. Oh, well.

SIL, the day caregiver, and Dad were leaving the next morning, Thursday, at 11 am to attend one of Dad's luncheons. I had to go home Thursday because I hadn't made arrangements for Miss Thunderfoot (and the original plan was for SIL to fly home Thursday, too, so I had assumed I'd be taking her to the airport on my way out, but she changed her flight to Friday). So I told SIL I'd stop in again before they left for the luncheon, and I'd call if it looked like I wouldn't make it.

When I arrived at 10 am (I ate breakfast first), I found Dad already in the car, and SIL and the day lady on their way out the door. They were leaving early because they wanted to stop at the bank and blah blah. Duh? SIL was angry at me for not having called. Duh? (She knew where I was staying. She could have called me.) I had to go to the bathroom so bad, the once-a-day one, ya know?, but I didn't feel like I could ask to use the bathroom. You don't inconvenience SIL. Especially when she has already determined that it's my fault for not calling. So I hugged Dad and left, and hurried to the first rest stop on the Thruway.

I don't know why I was so tired, but about four hours into the trip I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I took an hour nap in the car at a rest area. I got home a little after 6 pm.

It was all very strange.