My 77 year old dad has always been a difficult man. Demanding, selfish, arrogant and generally a bit of an arsehole. Not all the time of course; he can also be charming, kind, generous and a lot of fun.
As he's got older and sicker he's got more and more unpleasant. He's currently in hospital with suspected sepsis and also awaiting confirmation of lung cancer (PET scan a couple of weeks ago, biopsy 10 days ago). His moods are swinging wildly from day to day. He's so rude to me, my brother and my mum and also to my adult daughter who he has always idolised. I don't know how much of it is the possible infection or if it's just old age or even the start of dementia. He's getting more and more confused too, telling us things that we know aren't true. Tonight he was accusing the nurses of stealing his medication. He's rude to the hospital staff too, it's so embarrassing and upsetting... he's racist, impatient and seems to think they're all out to get him. He's accused them of lying to him, waking him in the middle of the night to take his blood pressure for fun (wtf?) and refusing to give him his painkillers. All of these are untrue. We are there visiting him every single night and sometimes during the day too and I'm starting to dread every visit.
I can't kid myself that this is solely down to either illness or old age as he's always been an unpleasant man; it's just magnified lately.
How to deal with it though? Pull him up on every rude, nasty comment and we're either met with more aggressive rudeness or sulking and silent treatment. Try to ignore it and surely it's giving him the okay to continue? I'm so very tired. My poor mum is at her wits end with him and is dreading him coming home as she'll get the brunt of it then. With the cancer diagnosis a mere formality things are only going to get more difficult.
If anyone has been in a similar position I'd love to hear some coping strategies.