Russ has been steadily declining since they moved in September 2005. When they moved in Dad was often confused, but still mostly functional. Recently Dad has been having difficulty sleeping at night and has been walking many times and falling on the floor. Sometmes more than 4 times per night! This obviously wears on all of us, because no one is getting sleep when this happens. Russ also babbles nearly non stop while he is "sleeping" which means none of us really sleep either because mom has to listen to the constant chatter and we have a monitor in our room to keep track of them in case either of them need us during the night.
This week has been particularly bad for Russ' sleep. Despite the fact that he takes medicine to help him sleep(Ambien) he wasn't sleeping, so then we added in Benedryl to try to help him(and us) sleep. But that didn't work either. Then he started getting confrontational with Dan's mom and then we had to give him an Ativan. He still didn't sleep and then started falling more! We called his doctor and he recommended giving him 2 Ativan at night with his other medicines! So we did this. Saturday Dan had to shower his father twice due to incontinence. (Then later that day Russ decided he needed a shower- he didn't remember having 2 in the morning!)
Then on Sunday morning although our schedule was tight in order to get to Mass on time, Dan showered his father again. Dad was incontinent and unaware of what he had done. It is so sad to see him declining so rapidly. But Dan takes it all in stride, even tho patience and disruptions to his schedule are very hard for him to take. He treats his dad with such love. When I listen to him shower and dress his dad, it just makes me want to cry because his heart is so tender .
May God bless us and especially Dan as we live through these mext few months!
BTW, we are going to try to cut back on the bedtimes meds and see what we can do that helps Dad stay continent and all of us sleep. Its all trial and error!
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