Hi all
I came to crunch point yesterday after a very upsetting phone call to my Dad yesterday morning while I was at work - he was hallucinating quite badly and had no idea what time of day or night it was. The upshot was my boss overheard my end of the conversation and supported me through the subsequent tears, told me to get straight over to Dads, take my laptop and not darken the door of the office again until I felt more up to it bless his heart. He also told me that I had to make some very hard decisions very soon, he's experienced the same thing with his mother who has now gone into a home.
So I rang Dads doc and surprise surprise he told me to go straight to the surgery where I basically spilt my heart out - Dad won't accept social care so I'm on my own caring for him and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to cope with him. He told me to take Dad into the surgery on false pretenses today so that he could assess his mental and physical state and start referring him to the mental health team. I felt truly guilty about this because I'm finally admitting that I can't cope with Dad any more.
Off we trots this morning after taking an hour to get Dad ready, he kept forgetting that we were going and kept doing other things, and when we got there it was a different doctor asking exactly why I'd taken Dad in! So I asked him to do a health check on Dad which he did, he ignoring Dad and asking me all the questions like does he drink etc etc. The GP then looks at Dads notes and says in front of Dad that I'd said yesterday his hallucinations were getting worse. Dads eyebrows shot out of the roof and he started to get that 'I'm going to be awkward and aggressive when we get out of here' look on his face. The doctor just said to make sure Dad takes his Haloperidol regularly (despite me trying to tell the him that getting Dad just to remember he has tablets to take is no mean feat) because they stop the hallucinations (they haven't in Dad's case). I managed to distract Dad afterwards by driving him round to look at the floods and he seems to have forgotten what the GP said for now.
Am I right in thinking that the GP was totally out of order saying that in front of Dad? I thought the whole point was to protect Dad, I know he hallucinates but I don't agree that telling him that what he goes through isn't real, could you imagine how that would make him feel when he's distressed enough by what he 'sees'!
I feel like I'm back to square one, not that I ever got off square one in the first place. What does it take to have somebody who quite clearly has dementia assessed for some sort of help and extra care? Or is it just a case of the state having yet another unpaid carer and they're quite happy for it to continue that way!
Yours ggrrrringly
AJay
I came to crunch point yesterday after a very upsetting phone call to my Dad yesterday morning while I was at work - he was hallucinating quite badly and had no idea what time of day or night it was. The upshot was my boss overheard my end of the conversation and supported me through the subsequent tears, told me to get straight over to Dads, take my laptop and not darken the door of the office again until I felt more up to it bless his heart. He also told me that I had to make some very hard decisions very soon, he's experienced the same thing with his mother who has now gone into a home.
So I rang Dads doc and surprise surprise he told me to go straight to the surgery where I basically spilt my heart out - Dad won't accept social care so I'm on my own caring for him and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to cope with him. He told me to take Dad into the surgery on false pretenses today so that he could assess his mental and physical state and start referring him to the mental health team. I felt truly guilty about this because I'm finally admitting that I can't cope with Dad any more.
Off we trots this morning after taking an hour to get Dad ready, he kept forgetting that we were going and kept doing other things, and when we got there it was a different doctor asking exactly why I'd taken Dad in! So I asked him to do a health check on Dad which he did, he ignoring Dad and asking me all the questions like does he drink etc etc. The GP then looks at Dads notes and says in front of Dad that I'd said yesterday his hallucinations were getting worse. Dads eyebrows shot out of the roof and he started to get that 'I'm going to be awkward and aggressive when we get out of here' look on his face. The doctor just said to make sure Dad takes his Haloperidol regularly (despite me trying to tell the him that getting Dad just to remember he has tablets to take is no mean feat) because they stop the hallucinations (they haven't in Dad's case). I managed to distract Dad afterwards by driving him round to look at the floods and he seems to have forgotten what the GP said for now.
Am I right in thinking that the GP was totally out of order saying that in front of Dad? I thought the whole point was to protect Dad, I know he hallucinates but I don't agree that telling him that what he goes through isn't real, could you imagine how that would make him feel when he's distressed enough by what he 'sees'!
I feel like I'm back to square one, not that I ever got off square one in the first place. What does it take to have somebody who quite clearly has dementia assessed for some sort of help and extra care? Or is it just a case of the state having yet another unpaid carer and they're quite happy for it to continue that way!
Yours ggrrrringly
AJay