Signal Failure

Severely difficult phone conversations the past few days.  Saturday and Sunday, he picked up the phone, then couldn't hear me.  Long rounds of "hello...  hello... hello..."  Saturday I was convinced he'd mistaken one phone for the other - that he answered the live one, then started talking into the dummy receiver the attendants had given him to keep him from running the battery down on the cordless.  Sunday I wasn't so sure.  He answered, couldn't hear, and immediately handed the receiver to the attendant, who could hear, told him his son was on the phone, and handed the receiver back.  What does that indicate?  Probably that it's a new cognitive failure.  Something's gone wrong with his ability to process sound by itself - in the absence of any visual cues.  A voice on the phone is suddenly too abstract for him.  If so, that means that when he can't hear me, it's not because of a phone problem or a hearing problem  It's because the auditory information isn't getting processed.  He can hear it but it might as well not be there.

Last night he was able to hear/comprehend me - so we went off on an hourlong riff.  When am I coming to eat with him?  Wednesday?  That means the third? (yes - third day of the week)  That's good because his parents are going to be there.  They're coming in from New York.  But when are they coming in?  Maybe it's the next week.  They have to come a long way.  Can I call them?  (sure, I'll call them) That's good because they're coming in but it's a long way and he's in a new house that he's never seen before - it has a living room and a bedroom...  Can we find him there? (yes, we know exactly where to find him).  But when are his parents coming in?  He hasn't seen them for years... (I'll call them - I'll call them right now...)  Long runs of loops and repetitions and finally I told him that I needed to call his parents right now to find out what their plans were, and then I'd get back to him.  Otherwise I never would have gotten off the phone.

I'll go to New York tomorrow - first time in two weeks - and see if he's any better in person.  I don't expect he will be.

In an hour I'm going to drive over to D's office and sit down with her and review my nursing home visits so far.  I'm still leaning strongly toward Nursing Home 3... which means it's time for an objective reality check and some guidance about what to look for and what to ask about during the follow-up visits.  There's a fine line between intuition and recklessness and I want to make sure I'm on the right side of it.

It's interesting how things simplify themselves if you let them.  Suddenly there's no question that I have to move him... and no question that it has to be a nursing home (there's no way a group home could cope with him).  So while it'll be difficult, at least there won't be the added difficulty of agonizing over the decision.

I also think that, whatever my reservations about Mrs. Q, she was right - he's going to crash in a nursing home.  But since there isn't an alternative, his crashing is a given.

I'll figure out where, and then all of us working together - him, too - will figure out when.

Comments

[Amy]

I'm thinking of you as you deal with all of this searching for the right place for your dad. My mom has a lot of the same cognitive issues that you describe with your father. She has declined really rapidly and is becoming more than my dad and my brother can handle on their own. We're finally getting some outside help, which is a very good thing. I have a feeling a nursing home isn't far off, but we'll see. Anyway, just wanted you to know that a random person out in the world was thinking of you and your dad.

[Alan G. Ampolsk]

Thanks, I really appreciate that - and apologize for being so slow to reply. Hope you understand the distractions. As to being a random person - yes, but we all are. I've always hoped the blog works both ways - I'm always grateful to hear from all of you who are fellow travelers, because it's easy for me to fall into the trap of thinking that I'm going through this alone. And if by blogging I've given you the sense that you're not alone, then I've done my job. Or part of it, anyway. Hang in, and I hope that when you get to the nursing home stage, some of this is useful to you.