Dementia is such an awful disease. In my experience it accentuates a person’s worst personality traits. My maternal grandmother was a gossip and a “mean girl” who favored her male progeny. She became physically and emotionally abusive to her husband, and cruel to others. Grandma became (or always was?) a compulsive liar. She made up the craziest stories. When my Dad went into the hospital to have his cancerous prostate removed she was telling ladies at church that he was having a penile enlargement.
My father has also become mean, and a liar. He has looked both my mother and I straight in the eye and lied! About big things and small things, serious or trivial. But today’s caregiver chronicle was inspired by the meanness.
Earlier this week we lost one of our super sweet barn cats, Baxter, who got hit crossing the road. In light of this, we have been thinking about not letting our 2 indoor/outdoor cats outside anymore. But, dad wouldn’t even pause when opening the door to let me think, he just let them both out. I might have paused what I was doing to prevent them from going out, but we’ll never know.
To add insult to injury, Dad only tried to call Lenny back inside. He just left Cliff out there knowing full well that Cliff is the one in danger. Lenny won’t stray more than 10 feet from the house, while Cliff has been seen near the road. Cliff is more my cat. I was financially and physically responsible for his vaccinations and neuter surgery. It is incredibly hard not to take this personally.
