Cohen's Nuthorse

I've been wrestling with bringing myself to have the most difficult conversation of my life -- with my dad. I think I should probably ask him if he knows what's happening (that he's dying) and then ask him if there's anything he wants to tell me, and to assure him that I'll take care of Pam.

I'm not sure there's ever a good time to bring something like this up, let alone guess how this will be with Pam in the room. But, it seems like he's in the same position. He can't bring himself to tell me that he's dying. Not only is he scared for himself, I think he's very worried about how I'll take the news. That is, in the back of his mind, I think that's what's there. What's in the forefront is very vague; he can't really sort through the clouds. Seems he knows he's uneasy, but he can't really express the source of the problem.

Language is the first thing my dad lost in this whole, long last leg of his lifetime. It's one of the signs of Dementia, and has been very frustrating. When he first started losing words, I'd chide him. "Dad! You can't remember the name of (insert any subject here)?" He'd say, "Well, how the hell do you think I feel?"

When his health really started declining, the language began leaving him in leaps and bounds. He'd answer the phone with the most bizarre greetings. "Cohen's Nuthouse" became "Cohen's Nuthorse", or just "Cohen's Nut." He once wrote a note for me to pick up some "Glander Will".

"Dad, I don't know what a glander will is."
"Sure you do!"
"Uh, no ... no, I'm pretty sure I don't."
That's about when the shoulder shrugging started. Sometimes, during one of these inventions, he'd start laughing and try to pass it off as something he just thought would be funny. But I could see the fear behind the laugh. He could hear the words coming out wrong, and by the time they did, he didn't even remember what he was trying to say in the first place. Another shrug.

One time recently, it became apparent that he didn't remember my name, and I was determined to drag it out from wherever it was buried.
"Dad, what's my name?"
"Sweetheart."
"No, really. What's my name?"
"Sweet Sue."
Sue's my middle name, but that's not what was he was going for here; he simply couldn't remember.
"What's Bruce's sister's name?"
(shrug.)
"What's Cheryl's name?"
"Cheryl! See; I told you I knew it!"
I laughed with him and Pam (who hasn't known my name for some time now) but I cried all the way home. I know it was very tough for him, too, even though he was trying once again to pass it off as a joke.

This becomes doubly-crazy, as Pam's Dementia has a completely different form; she has not lost language at all. Hers is usually in the form of wild stories and a completely altered reality. For example, she often talks about being carried on the back of the activities director to the fourth floor of the single-story facility.

I have a giant dog, a Great Pyrenees. One day, while chatting about several different things that I was doing to prepare for a trip, Dad asked me, "How are you going to get all those animals in there?" I could only guess that he meant how was I going to get my dog into the car.

"On their feet, Stupid!" Pam yelled at him from across the room.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm at a tennis game, sitting in the middle of the court, following the crazy banter from bed to bed.

I've spent the last year and a half protecting my dad from bad news, bills, legal problems and medical decisions. Do I now bludgeon him with a conversation about his death, or just let it lie still, until the conversation is moot? If he had something important to impart to me, could he express it anyway, or would he just shrug it off like everything else that's too hard to think about?

I guess I won't ever know the answer to my questions for sure, but I guess I can fill in the blanks if he gets stuck. Maybe we don't need to express the words at all, since we seem to muddle through without them most of the time, anyway.

(shrug.)