Go to bed!

Lasr night I woke up around 4am  0 went to the bathroom - checked in on my dad and sure enough he wasn't in his bed asleep - his bed was made up and his clothes were not at the end of the bed. I came downstairs and found hum fully dressed sitting in his recliner reading the newspaper (he had already read the paper three times during the day).
me - "Dad, it's 4 in the morning - come to bed."
dad - "I am reading this"
me - " You already read that, in fact you read it three times - come to bed"
dad - "How do you know?"
me - "Because I saw you reading it earlier today - come to bed"
dad - just sat there and kept flipping the pages - not reading a thing just being obstinate
me - "Dad stop reading that paper. It is time to got to bed"
dad - ignoring me
me - "I am not going away until you get going back upstairs - go to bed dad!"
dad - srares at me blankly
me - now I a getting mad - I can't have him downstairs at 4am alone with the potential that he goes outside and wanders away  I start yelling "go to bed dad!"
dad - just stares
me - "go to bed dad - that's an order!"
dad - finally a response - he takes the paper and folds it up and shakes it at me."what are you crazy?'
me - "Yes dad I am crazy - go to bed!!!!"
dad - stands up "are you crazy?!"
me - "Yes Dad! Go to bed!!!!"
dad - " You can't treat people like this!" he was so angry
me - "GO TO BED! - I will be right behind you"
dad - "what for?"
me - "to make sure you don't fall down the stairs and that you go to bed"
dad - walks slowly up the stairs and back into his room
me - laid in bed awake for an hour I was so worked up  - plus I had to make sure he didn't come right back downstairs

Dad then slept until 10am. It is so hard. I think he just wakes up probably with the need to go the bathroom and just doesn't have any sense to then get back into bed and go back to sleep. Instead he knows he is awake so he gets dressed, makes his bed and wanders downstairs. What is hard to understand is why sme things stay in his memory and others don't  - his entire adult life he woke up every morning brushed his teeth, shaved and showered. I don't think he brushes his teeth very often, when I ask him about it he says that he does but I know that the same tube of toothpaste has been in his bathroom since last Fall and there is still a whole lot in it. He shaves every few days (usually after I have prompted him to do it several times) and he now showers maybe once a week - after a lot of prompting...

this disease just sucks...

Stuck in the middle

I have a lot of introductions to do to get people up to speed but for now I just need to start blogging about things. It is 4 am and I am sitting here in the dark on my bed with my twin boys sleeping in the room on their beds. I woke up just before 2 am because I heard the t.v. on in my Dad's room (he has Alzheimer's Disease) I went in to check and he was sitting at the end of the bed on the cedar chest fully dressed in the outfit he had worn yesterday except he had added to it the shirt that I had laid out for him to wear today. So there he sat in the dark looking ridiculous with two short sleeve golf shirts on staring at an infomercial for women's bras. I went into his room turned on his bedside lamp and turned down the covers on the bed (one of the oddest things about my father and this disease is that he remembers every day to make the bed when he "wakes up") to find the whole bed soaked  - he had pee'd in bed (seemed like he had sat up on the edge of the bed and just pee'd)Now on a good night this would be annoying and frustrating for me but tonight it was more than frustrating - I literally almost fell onto the floor and started sobbing. Thank goodness I didn't because upon closer examination not only was the bed soaked but the carpet was wet as well. You see I had spent the whole day washing my dad's bed linens for his king size bed. I washed the sheets, and the mattress covers and the blankets and had even flipped the mattresses over. So at 8:30pm I put all the freshly washed things back onto his bed (with the help of my son Dylan.) After the initial "I can't believe he did this" moment wore off, I looked at him and asked him if he realized that he had pee'd in the bed - he said no. OMG! He is sitting on the chest in soaking wet underwear because he didn't change them he just sat up in bed, pee'd and then got out of bed and put his clothes that he already worn back on - YUCK - and he doesn't even realize it! So I ripped all the sheets and mattress covers off  - the mattress is so soaked that I need it to dry so I had to swap it to the other side of the bed that he he doesn't sleep on - the bed is king size but it has two twin mattresses. I found some clean sheets in the closet and remade the bed (I added a pee pad this time so that if he does it again it won't go through to the mattress at least) while he just sat there at the end of the bed staring at the t.v.. So once I finished doing that, I instructed, and yes instructed is the perfect word,   him, to get undressed and change into the new underwear that I got out of his drawer. He just sat there. I asked him if he understood what I was telling him to do - he just shook his head. I went through the instructions again.He still just sat there. So finally I said let's start with your shoes, and I bent down and untied them and helped him take them off. Then we took off his socks, which were wet because he had gone to sleep with them on...Next I told him to take off both shirts he had on - I also interjected that it was completely inappropriate to wear two shirts like that. His response to that was "no it's not." So then I told him he needed to take off his pants- he did that and was still just sitting there looking at me like I had two heads and he obviously  had no clue why I was making him do all this. I took all the wet clothes and sheets and put them in his bathroom. I came back and handed him the fresh, clean,  dry underwear and told him I wanted him to change into that pair then go get into bed and turn out the light and go back to bed. He just sat there. I turned off the t.v., stood directly in front of him,  and gave him the instructions again. He still sat there with a blank expression. At this point I wanted to shake him and scream but I just said one more time  - take off the underwear you have on and put this new pair on - finally a response from him - he bent down and started to put on the new underwear without taking off the old wet ones. I said No - take off the underwear you have on and leave them on the floor and put on this new pair. So then he starts to get up and sit on the edge of the bed to do this - I about had a fit - I said No, don't sit there on the bed with you wet smelly underwear I just put clean sheets on the bed - sit on the chest and get changed . I waited outside his door a few minutes, went back in and he was now sitting on the chest in the clean pair (probably would have sat there all night if I didn't go back in) I told him he could get back into bed and turn out the light it was not time to wake up. He shuffled over to his bed, flopped into it I pulled the covers over him and turned out the light.

What an ordeal  - it is so hard to comprehend that a person could pee in his bed and then just get out of it, pull up the covers and get dressed (in the wet underwear) and not even realize it. I just keep sighing....

And now that I have been blogging this my three year olds have both woken up - we have gone potty and even went downstairs to get a piece of banana bread for one of them...time for EVERYONE to go back to bed..