Sunday, September 13, 2009

Some sort of cusp

Yesterday Dad had a fall. He stood up from his lounge chair and just collapsed onto the floor. He wasn't hurt. Luckily he didn't hit his head or limbs on furniture. I have read that low blood pressure can be a symptom of LBD so will get Dad checked out by his GP to make sure that is what it is. Dad sees the dr on Wednesday for his B12 shot.

Dad is wanting to go to bed earlier. Some nights he wants to go at 6.30 pm but I try to get him to stay up till at least 7.30 to hopefully help him sleep a little later.
Last night he awoke at 8.30 and came down and told me
'who is going to get the long pieces?'
'Dad I'm not sure. I think you might be dreaming'. Dad uses the word dreaming when he starts talking 'out of the moment'...ie 'need to catch the rabbit' looks at me and laughs and says I must be dreaming. So it seemed appropriate to use because Dad 'wasn't there' and I didn't want to agitate him.
He was quite ardent that he had something to build and it was troubling him. To me he seemed like he was still in a dream state.
After a few minutes he came around and then was happy to go back to bed.

Around 10 pm he was singing out something not making a lot of sense. So I went up to his room and he was troubled, slightly confused but frightened. I tried to work out what was bothering him. Wasn't too hot, too cold, no pain, didn't need to go to the loo but he wouldn't or couldn't tell me what it was that was scaring him, he didn't want to be in bed or in that room. He also said that it would be better if he ended it all because he was a danger to people. My Dad the pacifist, who fed the possums in the yard to the dismay of a neighbour after Peter the possum took up residence in their roof, who let the pool go all murky over winter so there would be more frogs in this world (every summer it was a family ordeal to clean the pool for Mum), who I have only seen raise his voice twice in my whole life now think he is a danger to people. You just gotta hate Lewy!!!
Dad was just laying there. At the moment my 2 cats, especially Scruffy is more of a danger (I'm aware that this may change one day). I wish I knew how to turn off these terrible thoughts, dreams, or maybe they are hallucinations.

I told him it was ok to get up and asked him did he want to watch TV. He sat for awhile watching the football and after half an hour he wanted to go back to bed.

I feel like Dad is on a cusp, like standing on the edge of an abyss, the verge of a further decline.

2 comments:

  1. I'm sorry to hear your Dad is having such a tough time lately. I hope it's only temporary and as with Lewy he will fluctuate for the better rather than decline further.

    My Dad has mentioned scary things about ending it all before and it is haunting and so sad. I hate it, too.

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  2. I hope so too, I hate seeing Dad scared, does my head in.

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