9 Week Report Card= FAIL

I am deeply disturbed at the changes in Dad over the last 9 weeks. Since we began the Aricept 23 and the Zoloft, he hasn’t felt well. We have been to the emergency room and 2 doctors but everyone said we had to give it 6-8 weeks to allow his body to adjust to it. I called his primary physician today and requested that he be dropped back to Aricept 10 as soon as possible. We are going to try that for 2 weeks and if there is still no improvement, we will start adjusting the Zoloft. He is sluggish, lethargic, grumpy, cranky, and complains of his head, stomach, back hurting (he refuses pain meds). He gets defensive and hostile for no apparent reason.

He can’t tell me the names of his children (Melinda, Susan, Bill, Martha & Richard), when he got married (1940), when he joined the service (1940), how many missions he flew (48), how long ago his wife died (2 years on April 24th), when they moved into their home (1980), the list goes on and on. These are the verbal games we play daily. I’m not trying to teach him anything, I am simply trying to keep him exercising his memory. Lately, he doesn’t even get frustrated when he can’t remember something. He will turn to the person he is talking to and say, “I have a disease but I can’t remember what it’s called. You’ll have to ask my secretary.” To which I always reply, “Alzheimer’s, Dad.”

He fixates on things to the point I have to pray for patience, strength and wisdom. Unfortunately, it gets a bit wearing when we go over the bank statement for the 4th time in a day and the second I close my laptop, he asks me if I’m going to show him the bank statement (usually claiming he hasn’t seen one in years)! Now you do the math on this… on average, he and I go over the monthly statement at least 74 times a month (YES, I HAVE COUNTED). It takes about 20 minutes to go through it all and that’s with a paper that has the following printed on it:


Pension…XXXX
+ Social Security…XXXX
= Income

Mortgage…XXXX
Health Insurance…XXX
Prescription Insurance…XX
House Phone Bill…XX
+ Prescriptions…XXXX
= Out-Of-Pocket


To give you a bit of perspective, the income doesn’t even cover the mortgage so the out-of-pocket monthly is very high. (The number of X’s beside each, tell you how many digits there are to each item). Every time we go over it, I feel a little bit sicker. If my calculations are correct (barring ANYTHING unforeseen) we will manage to keep his roof over his head for only 2 more years. With that thought, I feel even sicker that unscrupulous, thieving caregivers caused him to have to mortgage his home to begin with. I pray that God will take care of it all because every door I have tried to open so far has slammed closed. I also pray that the sick feeling will fade away… or that Dad will someday get over this particular fixation.
He doesn’t want to get out of bed until after 1:00 pm. We argue over it almost daily. He has to be weighed, his blood pressure and pulse oxygen level taken, eat something and then take his medications. It has to be done in that order and it is MANDATORY! He seems to deliberately wait longer and longer each day. This, in turn, means I must nag him incessantly to get him up and going.

His will grows weaker and his stubbornness increases, it seems, simultaneously. There are no magic answers with this disease and there are no quick fixes… in fact, there are only delays.