Phew, what a traumatic week for you, I am so sorry.
Re your last point, telling your dad, well I haven't told my mum because she does not know what Alzheimers or Dementia is, she has heard the terms, and both her mother in law and sister in law had it (her sister in law very badly), but to mum they were jut "a bit batty". I have only told her that she has problems with her brain, I tried to say that the brain wears out as you get older just like your bones and internal organs, but she didn't really know what I meant by "internal organs" and that is nowt to do with AD it is just because my mum isn't very wise on such matters. She has always had a very narrow circle of friends, and has never been involved with anyone with cancer or heart disease or anything else really. She just thinks that people "die" of no cause other than old age. When the psychiatrist visits, my mum usually says something like "so you think I am losing my marbles do you?", which put her in a bit of a spot.
Re money, my mum never really got to grips with it. The weekly wage, and later pension, was for spending. When it was paid into the bank she would withdraw it all and stash anything spare under the mattress. When my dad twigged about ISAs she went along with it but seemed to think that the money could not be touched for any reason (and again this was before AD set in). When my dad died I realised she had three Halifax Liquid Gold accounts, all paying peanuts in interest, and I suggest she consolidate two of them into a higher rate account, but it fell on deaf ears. Oh no, that is my holiday account, and that is my savings account. Yes mum, but putting them together will get a better rate of interest, and you only have to give 30 days notice to get the money. But supposing I want the money quicker? Mum, what on earth would you need the money quicker for? I don't know, I just might. So they were left as they were.
Now she has AD, I have invoked the POA, sold her house, and totally revamped her finances. She stil keeps asking "have you drawn my pension this week?" - laugh a minute, cos the care home costs £500 a week - will you draw my pension and let me have it, there must be a lot of money in my pension account cos I haven't had any for ages! Er yes, like nil. And I get requests such as "When you next go to New Mills, will you go to the Halifax and draw out £20 for me". I daren't try explaining that these days I don't have to go to New Mills, I just go to a hole in a wall. So every person will be different about how they handle money, depending perhaps on how they managed money before they became ill.
My mum is a laugh! I bought her a new dressing gown last week, and she wants to pay me for it. I bought it using her debit card, but all I could say was "I got the money out of your account". I suppose she might not like this, but I don't have the time to go and withdraw £25 to give to her to give to me to pay for the dressing gown.
Love to everyone, eh we all have our difficulties. And mine are really minor compared to some.
Margaret