Hello Roommate, Goodbye Lady Friend

From the title of this blog, I'm sure you can guess what I am going to write about. This is a funny story, and I love telling funny stories about my Dad.

Megan and I visited Dad the other day because it had been about five days since we'd seen him and he had been feeling anxious. Dad's not having the best week and we can tell the moment we see him. His physical appearance and mannerisms reveal what kind of day he is having. We spotted him walking down the hall, kind of slouching over, looking into people's rooms and down at the floor. When he finally sees us, he immediately tells us that he has to take a poop and a squirt. Well, Hello to you too, Dad. Megan leads him toward his room and I run out to the car to get him a CD to listen to. He is in La La land so I'm hoping the music will wake him up a little.

I get back to the room, and Megan is standing in the doorway of Dad's bathroom holding his underwear out at arm's length and coaching him on how to finish up. We look at each other and immediately start cracking up. It's always so much better when we're visiting together, because we laugh a lot more. Megan says, "Well, I'm so glad that Dad has no problem stripping down in front of me. I just wish I didn't have to hold his dirty underwear." Let's just say that Dad's stomach was a little upset that day.

We head outside to sit in the garden and enjoy the nice weather. We bring some pictures to look at from my Wedding last year. As we're sitting there, Esther (the lady friend) comes over and sits next to Dad. She holds his hand and puts her arm around his shoulder. Like I said before, she doesn't talk. She can only giggle and say "Aye Aye Aye Aye". We found out that she has a frontal lobe dementia that has affected her speech. Dad starts talking to her and she only responds how she can and he looks at us and says, "She's kind of weird, huh? Maybe she's from across the Pond." He thinks she is speaking a foreign language! Then he says, "She must be Canadian." I thought I was going to die of laughter.

After we say bye to Dad, we talk to Lynette, the Head of Whittier Place, because she had requested that we stop by to chat. We find out that Dad is getting a new roommate who is ambulatory, very talkative, and relatively young. She thinks that they are going to be a great fit together but we're a little worried about how Dad will react and we're bracing ourselves for some tough days in the next week.

We also learned that Esther and Dad have been pretty inseparable and that the staff found her in his bed the other night!! She was dressed. He was not. I clap my hand over my mouth. Esther's husband still comes by to visit and now Lynette has to tell him this story as well. The staff separated them and have been monitoring their time together. They're actually worried that Dad is more tired lately because he is constantly walking up and down the halls with Esther--she has a lot of energy and is very clingy and antsy. Apparently he slept until noon earlier in the week! I don't think Dad has ever slept past nine, and he's usually up at seven.

All in all the day turned out to be very amusing, but Dad's not doing well this week. It's difficult for him to keep eye contact or raise his eyes high enough to look into yours. Feeding himself is confusing as well. His words kind of make sense, but his sentences don't. It's still so strange that he can be so bad one day, and then the next day he is normal, healthy, and chatting away.

Two days later, I stopped by and met Dad's new roommate, Ken. He's pretty cute and very talkative. Good cheerful personality. Dad already had some of Ken's clothes hanging in his closet. He was complaining about not having enough clothes, so I guess he went to Ken's store.

Also, Lynette informed me that Esther's husband was moving her out in the next couple days.

In the video below, Dad said that he wanted to go visit his parents and Megan is explaining why he can't do that.

The Rash

(laughing to myself)
I'm not sure what to talk about first today. Should it be the itchy rash that my Dad has acquired, or the fact that when I went into his room today he was walking around in just a t-shirt (nothing else), or the fact that they may have found the source of the urine smell in his room (yay)? Hmmm.

I will start with the rash. Megan took Dad to the doctor two days ago and was told that Dad has Scabies (pronounced like Rabies). That has got to be the ugliest sounding word in the English language. Scabies is a skin mite that causes itchiness and red bumps and is very contagious. I kind of compare it to head lice, but for the body. Everything had to be washed and cleaned and Dad had to sleep overnight in a special skin cream. Poor Megan had to deal with it and felt itchy all day even though it was mostly in her head. She jumped right in the shower when she got home. Turns out now, he didn't have Scabies. We still don't know what it is. I feel bad for him though because he is itching a lot.

When I get to his room today, I get mooned by my Dad. He is standing there with only a t-shirt on and I am praying that he doesn't turn around. He's not afraid of standing naked in front of anyone... he could care less. But, guess what Dad? I care. Put some pants on please. Actually, why don't we start with underwear. Even that would be better. I figured out that he had been putting "lotion" on his legs, arms, and hands. I know he is itchy, so I can't blame him for trying to do something to relieve the itch. When I looked at the bottle though, I realize that he had been putting a 2 in 1 shampoo/conditioner on his body instead. By this time, he had his pants back on, so we didn't wash off his legs, but when we washed his hands there were so many bubbles coming off of him. They're going to have a fun time helping him shower tonight!

The good news today is that we think we found the source of the urine smell in his room. They tore his room apart trying to figure it out and found that the bottom of the cabinets in the bathroom next to the toilet were soaked... probably with urine. As I said before, Dad's roommate has issues going to the bathroom and it's possible that my Dad could also be "missing the target" when peeing as well. A new cabinet has been ordered and should be here by the end of the week. I have to thank Whittier Place for really trying to solve this problem! I hope it works.

Dad is still having a difficult time remembering which bed and closet is his. He goes over and sits on Chuck's bed or takes clothes out of Chuck's closet. Today, I labeled his closet and bed. I doubt it will help, but it's worth a try. I attached a picture of Dad's room and labeled closet. He was in a great mood today. Flirting with the ladies and walking through the garden with me. Hope he's this happy next time.

Side note: We're still really worried about Dad's financial situation. He is losing money monthly right now... mostly due to the fact that he still hasn't sold his mobile home. Two rent checks per month takes a toll. It just seems that he is finally settling in and it would be awful to move him to a cheaper place right now, but I guess it does come down to the money. We are still trying to look into every resource possible before having to move him. Cross your fingers!