Reset

Daughter's account of the consequences of her father's Alzheimers

Honestly don’t think it has made me a better person, though perhaps if you saw me with him you would disagree. It’s not that I’m kinder now, only that I’m better at pretending. I told Liz last time that I drove straight down to the station when they called me saying Dad had turned up. It’s not exactly a lie. I visit him when I can. No, that’s not true. I hate the place. Sometimes I hate him; more often I hate myself. I read some of these blogs by other people whose relatives have Alzheimer’s, and they all talk about it being a battle, about how it makes them stronger. Except it can’t be a battle. There’s nothing fair about it, there’s no winning.

“It was awful Liz, I didn’t even hang up, I drove like a maniac all the way. He’d forgotten why he was there. And the note, oh god the note, it was so tragic,” that was true, “and so sweet,” less true, “and all I could think was, this is going to happen to me; in forty years, this will be me. That’s so selfish.” And I know of course she will tell me it’s okay, and everyone thinks like that sometimes. I only drip-feed her these sincerities because she’s my friend. There is nothing honest about me anymore. “He was going to jump, I really think he was.”

I saw it all happen, saw myself drop the phone and grab for the keys on the hook, saw myself driving. But I didn’t feel anything, not this time. There was no fight or flight, only autopilot. And somewhere distant I heard myself wish he would have done it this time. I imagined the train hitting him before I realised I was doing it. Dad has this white plastic pedometer he always clips to his belt, he’s had it as long as I can remember, really old technology with this screen like a calculator display and two little rubber buttons to reset or turn it on and off. It’s the one thing he never forgets, he always clips it on in the morning. When I was younger, I always wondered what was inside it that made the numbers go up when you shook it. Now I imagined the white plastic cracked in halves like an egg shell, and its metallic guts spilling out over the train tracks.

It was so much easier before mum died. I don’t go to church anymore because I know they all want me to be her. Mum and dad called me Etta, after her and after the singer. Except I can’t sing. Mum had a beautiful voice. She sang at church, and at home when she was fluttering round the kitchen, with this flawless vibrato. Dad used to call her his humming bird. I think everyone just saw the beautiful blur of her wings round that kitchen, and nobody could ever tell how hard she must have had to flap to stay up in the air. When he started to lose it she always knew what to do, even when it got bad. And sure there were days when she got quiet and poured herself a drink but she never let anybody see. I only ever saw the bottles slowly draining away. I read somewhere that said Alzheimer’s was like a rising tide. I liked that. More than all the battles at least, it was quieter. It’s nice when people can be quiet, I think.

He’d go down to the train station even when she was still alive. He’d say right to her,

“I have to go see Etta now. She’ll be waiting,” and she’d say something kind to him and raise an eyebrow at me, “I reckon she could wait just an hour or two.” Then in an hour or two he’d have forgotten. But the lucidity was the worst. Dad was a journalist. He set off metal detectors in five different continents with that damn pedometer. He was the smartest man I knew, but he never made you feel stupid. When he remembered it hit him hard. He used to write these beautiful letters, and nobody could tell if they were love letters or suicide notes, he never finished one. But down at the home they always assumed the worst, and whenever he got out and made it down to the train station again they’d always assume.

One time he dislocated his knee. Nobody knows how, it was one of the times he got out. They only know he racked up ten thousand steps on his pedometer. Anyway, the doctor gave him this drug called Propofol to kill the pain while they reset his leg. How it works, they said, is that it interferes with the memory of the pain. So he’s unconscious on the bed and he can feel everything that’s happening, big fat tears are running along his wrinkles but he’s only making this little whimpering noise. Then when he wakes up he forgets. So it doesn’t count.

He’s been worse lately. They upped his dosage of Aricept when he started grabbing at the nurses. I don’t know how they find the patience to just shuffle a half a yard back and laugh it off. I can’t laugh it off any more. He started saying things like “caca” when he needs the toilet. He laughs at his reflection. He spits too. And I have this dream, and in it he’s growing bigger and bigger into this enormous, grotesque, wrinkled baby. And if forgetting it all means it never counted then maybe it would be best if he did it one of these days. That’s horrible, I know it’s horrible. But it’s true.

I take him back there again and it’s horrid. Fluorescent puddles of light and wipe clean surfaces and worn down vinyl floors. They call themselves a home. This is not a home.

“This is a nice place. Where are we?” and he presses the rubber reset button on his pedometer. You can’t tell me when that screen blinks a black zero all those steps just disappear. It doesn’t work like that. It can’t.