August/September/October 2021

Well, the twice a week caregiver was a bust. This experiment lasted about six weeks with two separate caregivers who had no training or skills to deal with a client with dementia. One just talked on the phone for nearly four hours at a time and did not interact with mom at all, and the other tried, but mom didn’t click with her. 

We know this because we installed temporary Wyze security cams to keep an eye on the situation and to see how mom settled in with caregivers. It was not a success, obviously.

It was also an expensive elder sitting service with little return for the investment.

Dad, surprisingly, made the decision to enroll mom at a nearby senior day care center instead. I say surprising because he has baulked at it for, literally, years. He didn’t want to pay for that service and feared she would dig her heels in and refuse to go, causing all kinds of emotional upheaval. We had urged him to take this step many times, but I think it was a combination of a lower hourly rate, fifteen dollars an hour–lunch included–and the possibility of more freedom that made him change his mind. She could be there for two full days for the same cost as having someone in the apartment for two half days.

Mom has been going to senior day care for about three months now. I’m sure it’s fine, but what concerns me is that dad doesn’t ask for any kind of progress report. Like: Is she eating? Does she interact with the other clients? How is her anxiety level? How are they ensuring that she doesn’t wander off? What about COVID precautions? It’s an experienced facility, but these are things I want to know which dad doesn’t really seem to track on at all. It’s kind of a dump and run situation. When you ask him, he just says she’s doing fine there.

Is she? Probably, but I would like something more concrete to set my mind at ease.

Maybe I’ll have more time to look into it now. It’s been a hellish few months work-wise and I just couldn’t devote a day to do a site visit. 

Still, she seems moderately less anxious when dad isn’t around. We took mom to visit her sister and she didn’t ask to call dad for at least two hours. That’s a huge improvement. It could be that she’s becoming more accustomed to not being with him 24/7. She’s a little less clingy although she was convinced that dad was following us up in another car and would bring her home or that any vehicle she spotted that even vaguely resembled a van was being driven by dad.

She lasted three hours at my aunt’s, which was quite an accomplishment, but the whole exercise is an exhausting experience. Getting mom there, distracting her on the trip up, distracting her at my aunt’s, dealing with my aunt who is not exactly easy to manage either, and then distracting mom throughout the trip back is enough to sap anyone’s strength of purpose. 

It takes two people to manage this. My husband drives. I am convinced she thinks only men can drive long distances because my father has always done the long-distance driving. My role is to distract her so she doesn’t freak out because dad isn’t in the car or because she thinks we’ll get into an accident. Her perceptions aren’t what they were, of course, so even if you’re driving at a sedate 60 mph, she thinks you’re going 100 mph. That’s why I can’t take her in my car for long trips, either. I drive a MINI, which is small and lower to the ground, so semis and big pickup trucks do loom over the car and make you feel vulnerable. And that’s me, let alone her.

I’m glad she’s in day care. I think mom needs socialization with others and needs to have care provided by people who understand her condition. She also needs to get used to not having dad around 24/7 both for his sanity and ours when we look after her on the weekends and dad goes out. For months we haven’t been able to persuade her that dad wouldn’t come home again when he leaves the house, but her daycare visits seem to be helping that anxiety. Maybe it’s just breaking the cycle of dependence she has on him.

But the day care takes a village too. I don’t know what the staffing is like where my mom goes, but I’m sure it’s a bunch of people who can take turns distracting clients. They don’t have to get burned out dealing one-on-one with a relative all the time. I’m not suggesting it’s an easy job, it isn’t, but caregivers there can walk away when the shift is over, assuming they don’t have anyone to take care of at home who is in the same condition. That’s entirely possible and if so my heart goes out to them.

I know I couldn’t do that job and caregivers who are devoted to their work deserve every ounce of respect and thanks that I can give them.