Thought of the Week: Grandest Intention

After my father died, and when my mother couldn’t understand why hadn’t she seen him in a while, she came up with the idea that he was on a secret spy mission and couldn’t get in touch with her without putting her in harms way. I painfully went through the grief we both had about Dad’s death, and when we got to the bit about my father the Brigadier having had severe dementia and being in a home, Mum would settle because she realised Dad would not want to have lived like that. But the reality of it had no traction, and Mum would be asking me where Dad was again…WAS it “kind” to tell her “where” Dad was and allow her to grieve with me, or would it have been kinder to have just agreed with her Dad was on a secret mission. Mum did not have dementia, but could not “hold” this story, they had been together since they were 16, and I think she just couldn’t imagine living without him. I could have saved us a lot of grief if I had just gone along with her. What was the kindest way to respond? It’s too late now to change any of it, but similar ethical issues are bound to arise as I and my friends begin to get older and some are showing signs of dementia.

My brother was diagnosed with the last stages of dementia over 6 years ago. He had 5 bypasses’, prior to this he was having mini strokes. My sister and I are feeding him 3 times a day giving him 2 of both immodium and pepto bismol, and he still has diarhea all the time, he has rages prior to sundown, and tracks poop all through his house. We have to bribe him to take showers, and even have a hospital chair in the shower. We urinates all over himself/and poops too. The VA said don’t bring him back (psyhyiatrist) because out of a 30, our brother was below a 7 in dementia. He repeats everything over and over. We are at wits end, My sister and I are both 60 and above, and this is killing us. We don’t know what to do.