Cause DH is sick of me banging on about my parents and I need to get it off my chest.
Both parents with dementia, dad early stage Alzheimers, mum mid stage rare ftd. I’ve been staying with them for a week a situation with live in care. Changing agency, all quite difficult and I’m probably here til a couple more days.
My mum can get really anxious, and when she does is really stuck to my poor dad like glue.
My mums anxiety has been off the scale since yesterday lunchtime. Rolling waves; it’s awful to watch. Last night was so tough. My dad and I tag teamed it, and I got no sleep at all.
Unsurprisingly, my mum is completely wrung out now. We getting a home visit from dementia team tomo and they suggested giving her the higher dose of sleeping pill tonight than we normally do.
We’d eaten by 530, meds all done, my mum was relieved it was the end of the day. But here’s the thing, she won’t go to bed til my dad does. This is quite common, but does depend on her anxiety. When she’s okay she will take herself off to bed but when she’s struggling there’s no chance. Even walking into her bedroom is difficult (they’re in separate rooms). Trying to get her to bed will just make things worse.
My dad needs a break. He’s done in. He wants to watch You Tube. I text him once it got dark at 630ish to suggest he pretend to go to bed. My mum would have been in bed and asleep within half an hour and he’d have the whole evening. But nope, he not going to. He blasting the TV so loud which so difficult for my mum. Her anxiety is building up. I can’t do a repeat of last night. It was awful and today has been terrible too. It’s too late now anyway. If he’d gone earlier, he could have got up again and had that alone time. I know I sound hard - I know he has dementia himself. But he’s v early stage and he’s the only one who can act to maybe make next 24 hours better for us all.
There’s nothing I can do. Any attempts to get my mum to bed will make everything worse. If I suggest he turn the tv down, it will make it worse. If I go back downstairs, it will set my mum off. I just have to stay calm and away. Avoid escalation and hope my dad doesn’t stay up really late.
Grrr 😡