What goes on at 2 am

Well at approximately two in the morning grandpa (my father) starts to hear people talking, playing weird music, and birds chirping; he is sure there is something amiss in the house especially the basement however, there is no one there yet you cannot make him understand the voices are in his mind and not reality.  So, after a week of everyone having the stomach flu and too weak to move it is my responsibility when he becomes irate to calm the situation.  Hence the two in the morning jaunt to his home to sit with him and try to explain like I do every other day that he has Alzheimer's and does he understand what that means? 

I try not to argue instead I listen intently and try to explain the best I can that there is no one there.  He insists drug dealers are trying to live in his basement.  I explain that he watches too much 48 hours on TV and there are no drug dealers around our homes.  We have three dogs that will alert us as well as security lights.  We talk and at three I think he will go back to bed, then four, then five, and when six arrives I am tired yet cannot sleep still working on yesterdays energy. Here I am,  I stayed until mother’s fever broke, washed a load of clothes that were left forgotten during a day of my girls running back and forth taking care of the sick and trying to get them to eat.  The kitchen was perfectly clean and the pot set up for coffee (God bless those girls).

I have emptied bedside commodes, washed mother’s bathroom down, made coffee, check his glucose which finally is back to 140 when running well over 200 the last three days. It is to early for him to eat breakfast and take his insulin so I left a soda and crackers in case he felt his sugar dropping.  I will head back down in a couple hours.  Everyone is wiped out both emotionally and physically.   If this was a one time deal I think my body could handle it, but this is pretty steady a night for me.  I pray I can continue the pace there is one great thing that has come out of this; I have managed to lose 13 pounds.

Son will be home soon, not sure how he is going to handle all this. I am positive it will be a shock I pray he will stay around long enough for us to reacquaint before he decides it is far too much for him and his soon to be wife to take.  I would not blame them in the least, this is my promise and my responsibility.