Hello, Goodbye

It's 3AM, I must be lonely

Why? Because... dementia.

Why did granddad throw a cup of water across the room? Why did he ask me for scissors so he could cut open his shoes? Why did he attempt to carry on a full conversation with me - his granddaughter - while masturbating in the middle of the living room? The answer is really quite simple.

At the time of this writing, my 92 year old grandfather is sleeping across the room from me. It is pushing 1AM and my watch won't be over for another 2 hours. In the last week I've logged 60 hours at the foot of his bed, tasked with one simple charge: Keep granddad in bed. We are camped out at this "Transitional Care Facility" for the foreseeable future, a result of one fracture in his pelvis and another in his hip. At 92, granddad is not a candidate for surgery, so he was prescribed this 2 month sentence - Don't put weight on your left leg or you are likely to snap that hip bone right off. And THAT will land you on bedrest for the rest of your life.

Now, if you told me to stay in bed for 2 months, I'd be pretty pissed but I would do as I was told. Unfortunately for my grandfather, myself, and my immediate family, my grandfather is no longer capable of following simple instructions. And so here we are - my grandfather/patient asleep in a hospital bed while I sit and type my story.

I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted to publish this story in any public forum. After all, this isn't fiction and I have witnessed my grandfather masturbating. More than a few times. My family is very sensitive to wanting Granddad to maintain his dignity, but I also need to maintain my sanity.  I am acutely aware of the loneliness I am feeling - and not just because I'm sitting in a room with 2 sleeping nonagenarians (granddad has a roommate). Taking care of an elderly family member with dementia is very isolating. As hard as it is on me, it's doubly hard on my mother. And while she is the single most empathetic person I know, I sometimes feel like unloading any of my dissatisfaction with the situation is only burdening her more. My father is in the same boat - he's been at the foot of this bed every morning this week from 2AM until he leaves for a full day of work. My husband is a trooper to be sure, and he's done his fair share to help take care of my grandfather over the last few years, but he's currently at home sleeping off a fever (because these things never happen one at a time - life likes to hit hard and all at once). And my friends, while wonderful and always supportive, are busy living their own lives. When someone politely asks you how you are - expecting a "Great!" or at the very least "Ok" - you hate to be the girl who says "Actually, things are pretty terrible at the moment." So you keep all those unpopular thoughts to yourself, only resulting in more and more isolation.

So here I go, blabbing to no one in particular, in the hopes that the simple act of writing about this experience will make it more bearable. And for a loftier goal, perhaps another soul will stumble across this story and feel a little less lonely in their experience, too.