There are better and worse periods with Grandpa. The broad picture is a downward spiral, but within that there is the rhythm or randomness of daily life. From the perspective of now I had a time (of weeks, maybe months) where Grandpa was better in his night time activity. His number of midnight trips were less and accidents were rare. I even started to think that maybe I no longer needed the linoleum I had crudely laid down on the bedroom floor to make the midnight messes easier to clean up.
Such was my delusion.
Last week, or somewhere thereabouts, we started our descent. It started with Grandpa being less prompt, efficient, and agreeable for the midnight bathroom trips. He would wake up and moan and groan for ten or twenty minutes before being agreeable the needed trip to the bathroom. Or, we would go and then he wouldn’t want to go back to bed. Or some variation.
This week we were back to messes. Two nights this week we ended up with a lake of urine on the bedroom floor, and once with the hall carpet soaked. Twice it was because of diaper failure. (I have upgraded what type of diaper I use because of plentiful past failures of this type, but no diaper is completely fool-proof). Once it was because Grandpa got out of bed and decided to get his diaper out so he could go pee–and he got mad at me from stopping his impromptu urinating on the floor. Contributing to all is Grandpa’s increasing inability to make prompt trips (or even remembering to complete the journey) to the bathroom. The mess in the hall was because he made it halfway to the bathroom and ran out of steam/forgot where he was going.
Midnight crabbiness is another thing on the rise. On Grandpa’s part it is at least due in part to his increasingly muddled state. If he can’t comprehend what I am trying to do (or how it well help him do what he wants to do) then I am just persecuting him. He doesn’t understand why I am always dragging him down the hall, making him go through doorways, and making him sit down, etc. I’m just manhandling him for no reason. And, for my part, an increasingly unhelpful patient (and increasingly lengthy and disastrous midnight ganders) marks an equal increase in my lack of patience.
For myself, I feel caught between a rock and a hard place. If Grandpa can’t understand what I say or what I am trying to help him do, why try? If he can’t remember that he needs to go to the bathroom a minute after he has got out of bed, why take him? But maybe if I explained things a little more he would understand. Or if I was a little more patient and slow we could make it to the bathroom. What could I be doing? What should I be doing? Such are the unanswered questions that come in the middle of the night when the minutes grow long, and there is no sleep in sight.
By default, my normal activity is to offer Grandpa assistance if he seems cognizant of a need to go to the bathroom and is willing to accept help. If he gets out of bed apparently unable to recognize his own need, or if he starts to become contentious about my assistance, I simply let him be. If he gets out of bed and starts opening dresser drawers or moving stuff around the room I may ask him half-heartedly, “Do you need to go pee?” or I may not. A year ago such a question would likely prompt a “Yes, I need to go!” at which point I would take him, he would do his business, and we’d both get back to bed. Now that question could get a “No, not now,” (even if it really is yes,) or, “Uh . . . maybe. I don’t know.” Even a “Yes,” doesn’t mean he will go. Often enough I’ve taken him to the toilet only for him to sit there for two minutes, then get off–only to really have to go ten minutes later. Or he has already gone and his diaper is wet and the entire trip was to no effect. Or halfway to the bathroom he stops and says, “Jeez, why are you dragging me along like that–let me go!” Or we get to the bathroom and he grabs hold of objects and refuses to enter, saying, “What the hell are you trying to do?”
The entire act of taking Grandpa to the bathroom is beginning to feel pointless. Half the time it seems he has already done everything he needs to do before we get there. The rest of the time he has already done half of what he needs to do (so the diaper already needs to be changed) or he does nothing and ends up wetting himself ten minutes later after we’ve left the toilet. Then add on top of that Grandpa getting crabby at me because I’m hustling him along (or trying to get him to go back to bed) and the attendant desire in me to say something back, which I shouldn’t, and in the end it feels like the best solution is to just lay in bed and do nothing.
That might sound obvious, but life isn’t quite that simple. First, it feels like a concession to my lack of patience and forbearance that I’m doing nothing because I disillusioned by the pointlessness and trying to avoid becoming angry over Grandpa’s irritable refusal of my less than perfect help. So I lay there and wonder if I am doing what is best in a bad situation, or doing what suits me best in a bad situation. Second, I lay there and wonder if this is really the best even for me. Why everything worked so well before was because I could get Grandpa to the bathroom promptly, he would empty his bladder, and then we would both get back to bed in quick order and be able to fall back to sleep. But now his failure to use the bathroom means that he gets out of bed and simply becomes a derailed train careening about and making sure neither him no I get sleep. Is there something I could do to keep him from becoming a midnight train wreck. Anything besides just lying in bed?
I haven’t come up with any answer. Maybe some day I will find a better answer. Maybe this is just how it will be.
But there is the cost in lost sleep. Some times it is a half hour. Some times an hour. Sometimes more. Last night Grandpa got out of bed at 11:00 PM probably because he needed to go to the bathroom. In the following three and a half hours he sat on his bed and talked incoherently, opened dresser drawers multiple times, sat on my bed and talked incoherently, bumbled and moved things about the bedroom, and finally ended up on his hands and knees in the corner by the door, completely lost–not knowing where he was, what he wanted, or where he was going. By that point he was finally so exhausted that he agreed to my suggestion to going back to bed. He was so exhausted and confused I had to physically dragged him back to bed. It was not the first time in those three and a half hours that I had put him back to bed, but it was only then that he finally stayed there, and fell back to sleep.
At 7:00 AM we were up for the day.
It is easy to think, “Woe is me.” But I was reminded earlier this week that however hard it is on me, all of this is much harder on Grandpa. If it is a form of misery for me, it is double the misery for him. As much as I suffer, it ought to give my compassion for Grandpa. Worse than a few hours lost sleep is the sleep lost along with not knowing where you are going, what you want, or where you are, and then pissing yourself on top of it. I have the lost sleep. Grandpa has that and everything else besides.
I was reminded of in the middle of the week. I had taken him to the bathroom sometime in the morning and sat him on the toilet to do his business. On my leaving he promptly got of the toilet, turned around, and urinated all over . . . everything. A little later I was back in the bathroom doing cleanup from the disaster. Grandpa stood and watched, and said in absolute misery, “I should just find a bridge to throw myself off. I haven’t done anything productive in a long time.” The comment, and the reminder of his misery, brought me up short.
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