I feel like sounding off. I know this feeling of tiredness and frustration will go away but just now I am finding it difficult to cope. I have learnt so much through reading and listening to advice about Dementia over the last two years. My OH has been re-diagnosed this year with LBD after his earlier diagnosis of mixed Altziemers and Vascular dementia. This means I’m learning more.
I love him dearly most of the time. He is 69, forthright, eats well, is mobile and doesn’t present any pointed physical attributes. When we go to groups people seem to assume that I am the Cared-for-Person not him as I look so haggard. He has terrible memory and needs help from me to get him through the day successfully. I am tasked with deciding what activities to do as he rarely has a preference even when offered a choice of two and I spend my time taking him out to various places or dementia groups or just a run in the car or out for a walk. He doesn’t think there is anything wrong with him and so we do not mention dementia for chance it upsets him. He wants to help with household chores and can manage some. Not on his own but under my supervision. He does get confused and needs assistance to find things and I answer his many questions and when all seems not right reassure him. He gets lost in his head in the evenings and doesn’t recognise where he is and what is happening to him. He sees thing so differently and can get very upset. I know things could be much worse.
Yesterday after we had my daughter and her family round for tea, they were getting ready to go home when he asked me when we were going. I reassured him and said later. Then the evening was spent going out and in the house. This happens on many evenings. I find he does get less confused and accepts our house as ours after a few trips out either in the car or walking round the block. If he doesn’t settle, I tell him we will be safe here until morning and if this calms him feel pleased. I managed to get him to bed eventually and gave him his bedtime tablet last night, thinking all will be OK again in the morning. It usually is. However, this morning when he woke at 5am (often his start time if not 4am) he was still wanting to go home and was vicious and nasty in his language, being aggressive one minute and pitiful and upset the next. Blaming me, he repeatedly said I was the reason for his anxiety because I would not help him to get home or to work or to the office. Whilst I cope fairly well in the evenings when this is happening but so early in the morning it got to me. I was so tired and couldn’t think what to say to him as everything I tried, re-assuring or otherwise, was wrong. I was determined I wasn’t going out and about at that time and he was as determined to make me. I felt I had had enough. He has always been the one in control before this all happened and I was happy to go along. Now he needs me to take control, which I do in every way. When his delusions start, he departs from reality and I find that so hard to deal with.
I am so exhausted all the time. My daughter helps when she can but she has two young boys to care for and works so is unable to do as much as she would like. I am trying to arrange a sitter once a fortnight so I can get time off but I am not sure he will accept someone so do worry about that. I’m just stressed out. I know there are probably many threads like this and I do read talking point and the comments quite regularly. I just wanted to sound off somewhere. Thanks for listening.
Tomorrow is another day!!!
I love him dearly most of the time. He is 69, forthright, eats well, is mobile and doesn’t present any pointed physical attributes. When we go to groups people seem to assume that I am the Cared-for-Person not him as I look so haggard. He has terrible memory and needs help from me to get him through the day successfully. I am tasked with deciding what activities to do as he rarely has a preference even when offered a choice of two and I spend my time taking him out to various places or dementia groups or just a run in the car or out for a walk. He doesn’t think there is anything wrong with him and so we do not mention dementia for chance it upsets him. He wants to help with household chores and can manage some. Not on his own but under my supervision. He does get confused and needs assistance to find things and I answer his many questions and when all seems not right reassure him. He gets lost in his head in the evenings and doesn’t recognise where he is and what is happening to him. He sees thing so differently and can get very upset. I know things could be much worse.
Yesterday after we had my daughter and her family round for tea, they were getting ready to go home when he asked me when we were going. I reassured him and said later. Then the evening was spent going out and in the house. This happens on many evenings. I find he does get less confused and accepts our house as ours after a few trips out either in the car or walking round the block. If he doesn’t settle, I tell him we will be safe here until morning and if this calms him feel pleased. I managed to get him to bed eventually and gave him his bedtime tablet last night, thinking all will be OK again in the morning. It usually is. However, this morning when he woke at 5am (often his start time if not 4am) he was still wanting to go home and was vicious and nasty in his language, being aggressive one minute and pitiful and upset the next. Blaming me, he repeatedly said I was the reason for his anxiety because I would not help him to get home or to work or to the office. Whilst I cope fairly well in the evenings when this is happening but so early in the morning it got to me. I was so tired and couldn’t think what to say to him as everything I tried, re-assuring or otherwise, was wrong. I was determined I wasn’t going out and about at that time and he was as determined to make me. I felt I had had enough. He has always been the one in control before this all happened and I was happy to go along. Now he needs me to take control, which I do in every way. When his delusions start, he departs from reality and I find that so hard to deal with.
I am so exhausted all the time. My daughter helps when she can but she has two young boys to care for and works so is unable to do as much as she would like. I am trying to arrange a sitter once a fortnight so I can get time off but I am not sure he will accept someone so do worry about that. I’m just stressed out. I know there are probably many threads like this and I do read talking point and the comments quite regularly. I just wanted to sound off somewhere. Thanks for listening.
Tomorrow is another day!!!
