When Your Dad Tries to Deck You

The stormy weather continuing to move through our area may be affecting my Dad.  He told me six times today about the lightning and thunder at 5:00 a.m. this morning.  It was the worst he'd ever seen in his life. The sky was red, and it lasted forever.

It's stormed off and on all day.  The County Emergency Phone System was activated this afternoon to warn of flooding.  This is the first time in my  50-plus years I've been in a place where there is an activation of a county emergency system by phone. I can't fault it.

After going to bed by 8:00 p.m., at 11:05 p.m. Dad was up wandering wanting something to eat. I offered him a strawberry cake. He told me he'd thrown a million of them away.  He took a chocolate cake and a glass of milk back to his bedroom.  This is a first in the year and a half I've been here.

At 1:15 a.m. I heard Dad up and just sat back to monitor what was going on. At 1:20 a.m. he walked through the living room, where I sleep, and into the den carrying an adult diaper, a "Depends." Originally we forced him into wearing these because he couldn't control his bowel movements.  Lately, in the last few weeks, I've wondered if he's losing control of his urinary function, too.  I waited to see what was happening, and after a few minutes of nothing, went into the den at the same time that a light went on.

I asked Dad what was going on. Of course, he didn't have his hearing aids in, so he couldn't hear me. Like that makes any difference anyway. I realized he was trying to throw the "Depends" away. The problem with that was that 1. he was trying to get to the big trash receptacle in the garage, 2. he couldn't figure out how to open the door to the garage, 3.  it's garbage-pickup day and the trash can was at the end of the driveway, and 4. he can't realize he could have tossed it in the wastebasket in the bathroom.

I said, "No, you can't." That resulted in him raising both arms with fists to hit me telling me I couldn't tell him what he couldn't do. I just looked at him. Then I walked over to the TV tray he'd put the "Depends" on, picked it up, held it up over my head and carried it back into the kitchen to the trash.

I had no clue what he was going to do. I came back into the living room and sat down on the couch. He defused, crossed the living room with me on the couch and went back to his bedroom.

So I managed to get through this episode. It begs the question of how bad will it get, and when do you reach the point you can't handle it?