Carrie Bartkowiak v. 5.0

Well, it happened.

My grandfather didn’t know who I was tonight.

I didn’t think it would happen this soon.  He’ll probably know who I am tomorrow; he was very tired and it was past his usual bedtime.  If you’ve read anything about Dementia and Alzheimer’s, you’ve read about “sundowning”, where the later in the day it gets, the more confused and forgetful the person becomes. Papaw Jess does that.  A few days out of the week it starts around 3:30pm, the other nights it doesn’t start until about 6pm.

He’s staying with us Sunday nights through Friday afternoons now. Friday evening he goes home with Mom and Dad and stays at their house Fri. & Sat. night.  Then Sunday evening Dad brings him backover here. Every Monday morning Mom would get him up to come over here and he’d make a real fuss about it, telling her she shouldn’t have to go to work and he didn’t want to get out of bed, why couldn’t she just stay home, etc.  He’d even say things like (pointing at Dad’s motorcycle) “Well whose is that right there?” and Mom would tell him “that’s Dick’s. That’s Dick’s motorcycle.”  Jess would say “well we could just sell it if we need money, you don’t need to go to work!” He’s offered to sell Dad’s avalanche, too, in order to keep Mom home. Anywho, it was too much for Mom to deal with on a Monday morning so to avoid the whole scene, they started bringing him over here on Sunday nights.

I knew this would happen eventually, I was just kinda shocked to have him standing there arguing about how he needed to “go home”, “I’ve got a home right down the road there” and have it dawn on me that he didn’t know who I was.  Then when I asked him if he knew who I was and he said “why, no ma’am…”   Just… wow.

It’s very weird, though.  I have *seen* him learn and remember things since he got here. Some things are going into his long-term memory, while others aren’t. He recognizes the bedroom that he sleeps in, although he usually can’t remember how to get to it. He remembers where we keep the oatmeal raisin granola bars.  He recognizes and remembers the boys, even if he can’t remember their names. Why are some things “sinking in” and others aren’t?

We’ve had a HUGE problem with him peeing in inappropriate places, and have had to use safety gates to keep him out of the laundry room.  Apparently tall skinny laundry baskets full of dirty clothes look like urinals? He peed all over our pantry once, too.  He was peeing in the trash can - we were able to combat that by buying a new trash can that is a different color and it has a lid.  Still can’t get him to stop peeing out on the front porch; so we just watch him whenever he goes outside and if he starts to reach for his pants we go out there and convince him to come back inside and use the bathroom.

With him forgetting completely tonight where he was and that he always sleeps here, and forgetting who I am, I sense that we’ll have to put special locks on the doors soon.  I don’t see there being a problem during the day - not for a while anyway - but after tonight I’m worried that he might slip out during the night when he’s “sundowning” and wanting to “go home”.

It’s just so sad.
Tomorrow I’m going to make him a little photo album with pictures of him with each of us, and on each photo write who it is.  Maybe looking at that daily will help him; if nothing else it might help if we run into another situation like tonight.  “See? Here is a picture of you with me…”

Cross your fingers for us.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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