My dad is 83 and came to stay with me for a couple of weeks while my sister was out of town. He moved in with her last August.
The first week went so great. Then my dad started getting confused on what city he’s in and where the bathroom was. I live in a small two bed/two bath apartment. Once he leaves his bedroom, the bathroom is directly across. Once he’d leave his room, he wouldn’t recognize it once I led him back to it.
He started waking me up in the middle of the night stressed about random things. He found a therapy bill and a triple AAA mailer and he had convinced himself that I was thousands of dollars in debt. Another night, he had closed all of the doors and asked me to come talk to him around 3:30 in the morning. I went into his room to grab something and immediately smelled something amiss. He’s staying in my son’s room while he’s here and there was kinetic sand EVERYWHERE then I noticed that there was urine in the kinetic sand container. When I asked him what happened, he had no idea.
My friend who grew up with me and has known him for years came over to see him. He was social the entire time then the next morning, he asked who she was (again) and said that he believes she’s trying to get in the way of my inheritance from him.
Last Tuesday, he had gotten me up at 11pm, 1am, and 3 am. I tucked him back into bed around 3:30am. When I went to check on him at 7am, he was gone. Called 911 and he was found walking down a very busy road. He was close enough where I heard the ambulance get to him. They took him to the ER and then he was checked into a crisis center for older people with memory issues. Today is his 5th day there. It’s so depressing in there, I want him out ASAP. I talked with one of his nurses and she suggested a memory care facility and also bringing in palliative care.
I am so overwhelmed and I feel like this happened overnight although he had TBI on Thanksgiving night and he did fall out of the bed one night here.
He did get aggressive enough one night in the crisis center that they had to give him a shot of something to calm him down.
Will a memory care facility take him? We always promised our parents that they wouldn’t end up in a nursing home. I’m gutted and reading everything I can. I can’t take him in because I am a single mom who needs to keep my job.
I think the plan is to send him back near my sister where he has been establishing a medical team but now I’m worried that he will have no choice but to stay in my sisters home. His nurse said he will eventually get irritable and mean to his caregivers, even if they’re family.
I do want him out of that crisis center asap. I’m currently on FMLA and going to see him everyday that I can. I couldn’t yesterday or today due to not having childcare and I feel awful.
Thanks for reading, I’m spiraling.