After 4 days of trauma with mum and dad - it was good to hear that today dad wasn't really great but he managed a good one at the end of the evening. He's spent a LONG, long, long time asleep this week. So as mum was about to leave, she sort of woke him up and said "Sorry, we have to leave you now, it's 8 O'clock and we have to go." Dad says, smart as you like "Thank God for that, now I'll be able to get some sleep!"
So now you know where I get it from. He's a good ol' boy :-)
From what I've read this is the early onset and he'll get more and more tired and slowly slip away from us. I just don't want him to hang on and not be getting any quality out of life. My mum was SO upset last week and they love each other so much, they often appear not to. I find it touching that they have such a great relationship but it is very strange to be a fly on the wall in this - I don't feel qualified for this - but then again - maybe I am :-)
What I dislike about this is that I've never ever ever known my dad be anything but the big strong father figure, the leader of the household and my rock and back stop and that's not what he is now. For all his dotage, he's deserved my utter respect and it is that high regard I hold him in that hasn't broken the bonds even when he has "challenged" me with his strange attitude to me in latter years - which I now understand must have been this pernicious disease that will take him from us.
I'm being severely tested, once again, as I hold together my brother's old fashioned views and my mother's wishes. Running the balance is, I find, exhausting and pushing me to the edge in terms of my ability to rationally deal with this as well as letting my (Vulcan like) emotions into the equation. By that I mean that I tread the line in holding it all together. My brother wanted (up until my intervention last week) a miracle, the impossible, the emotional to happen. My mother is devoted to my dad and I see the love they have for each other and I see that she is hanging on to every thread, every half chance, she jumps in with answers that dad just hasn't got the speed of response to answer upsetting him. It is actually a trait that I too suffer from and have to stop, I'm a little too quick to respond sometimes - I know the answer and butt in. Mum is doing this for the right reasons but I had to tell her that dad get's a bit p1ssed off when that happens, he just needs a few moments to gather his thoughts and then answer - slowly and as quiet as he now is.
So, there we are, dad isn't the leader of the pride any more and I feel bad about that and he just looks alone and lost and frightened and I can't do anything for him at all. I can be there, I can cheer him up - he has always suffered from anxiety and depression (I have no idea why - I'm not allowed to know until after he has died why that is - apparently).
So it's all a bit strange at the moment and I'm not sure what I feel and what the future has in store for me. I just hope that dad is allowed to end his life in a nice way. Argggh!
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