4 things that he cares about

As his ability to analyse and memorize deteriorates, things that are of his concern are becoming fewer. "Complicated" stuffs or tasks are impossible for him to perform. So the seven stuffs in his world now are:

1) His personal possessions, like his watch, his spec, his sunglasses, his handset, his wallet and his bottle, all these stuffs have to be with him, he will start panic and bother us if any of them were out of his sight or malfunctioned. he always wants to have his bottle full, even there is only quarter of the space is empty. If his bottle leaks he will ask for a new one almost immediately. His sense of immediacy is the biggest headache to us, we are not free at all time to entertain him.

2) His meals, every morning he pulls my leg to wake me up, asks me for breakfast. And the same for lunch and dinner. He forgets about his high cholesterol, high blood pressure and high glucose level, he wants to savor delicious food and get pissed off if he could not have them.

3) Being skeptical on our whereabouts, I mean he is very scared to be left alone, if he heard any creaking of opening a door and the sound of starting a car, he will think that we are going any where and reminds us to bring him along. He always moans that we go for a vacation without him, and sometimes even complains to others.

4) Day dreaming. He used to be a hardworking father, at least from my recollection of the past, I mean he would keep the house clean, especially his cars and do the repairing if any thing in the house is broken or malfunction. But now all he wants is just to sitting there, doing nothing and day dreaming, I wonder if he is actually pondering anything. He has just totally changed.

As suggested from the references to websites, books and doctors, we are conscious that we have to keep him using his brain and avoid letting him to day dream too often. So we keep asking him to read news papers, writing, not exactly writing just copying the some passage, and sometimes ask him to solve so simple mathematics equation, addition only, he cant even solve a minus. 

For his unreasonable and quite often emotional breakouts, we just have to deal with it with patience and care, but I admit that I am not doing very well on it, sometimes there are just too annoying. But I believe sharing the burden within the family is a good solution of it, just don't put all this pressure on the sole caregivers. What to do this is the only way.

This is the sign of deterioration, I know, I really hope that he could maintain the current severity until the end of his life, it will be the greatest blessing to us now. 

Self centered

He starts to become self centered, he doesn't care about how other feels anymore. He will just simply rant and complain if thing is not the way he wants.
when his wrist watch malfunctions he complain and keep bothering us to take for repair, immediately, if not he be  impatient and keeps ranting you and worse still blames us for not bringing him to solve his problem. He wants it to be done almost immediately regardless of the time of the day, or if we got the time to entertain him.
He has changed completely, and completely lost the ability and sense to care for others.
I know, he is dementia, I should not blame him on his intolerable behaviors, but it is just difficulty to go through it.
After all my mum, the care giver has done for him, it is not the physical tiredness that pisses her off, but the psychology depression of not being appreciated shatters her heart.
And I deeply pity him for losing his care for his close families that if he is aware he wont be so.
Oh please maintain this severity and don't get worse any more. Please

Just do everything with him

We have been scratching our head to figure out how can we get him doing something, anything, as long as we can keep his brain working. We worried that if he is just sitting on the sofa fantasizing, day dreaming and doing nothing, the deterioration speed will be quicken. We just hope that he can maintain the current situation, its fine to us and we can't imagine if he would become a soulless living, forgetting all his friends and families and unable to control his urination.

He doesn't like to be alone, so whatever we ask him to do, he will ask for company and getting upset if we force him. But last night i found that if there is a company, he is willing to do, like asking him to sweep the floor, he refuses every single time to do it on his own ( but his work is totally unreliable, we just want to keep him working and at least use his brain). So I handed him a broom and one for myself and he was just sweeping with me, and we just can't expect him to clean up the floor, just at least he is doing something. 

Another example is washing car, just throw him a cloth and wash together, and the thing he is doing doesn't need a lot of memory like clean the dirt right in front of his eyes, he can focus on it and complete it.

The golden rule is, He must keep using his brain.

The one who cares the most

I used to nag my mum not to be too harsh to Frankie, not to be too forcefully pushing him too much to remember and recall. Because to me, I think that, this is it, we must accept it, and all the emotion that we show to him will definitely be in vein. But when it comes to who cares about him the most, that must be her, Lina, my mum.

Last afternoon, my dad and I were weeding the messy grass that surrounds our house fence. To be honest, I don't quite like weeding, the grasses always make my legs unbearably itchy. So I called a halt immediately right after the we had done enough to have it looked clear and tidy in the side. But Frankie refused to stop, he continued the work to ensure that not a single grass was standing. I had no idea how to persuade him to stop, and I was craving to drink something so much, so I went back in the house first and rested, leaving him alone beside the concrete fence "trimming" weed. I sat and rested in a chair nearby where he was to make sure that I could hear what he said, but he was out of my sight.

My mum was in the kitchen at the moment, doing her cook, warning me that I should not ever leave him alone. I replied impatiently to her that I was close enough to notice if he make any sound. she shook her head and went back to kitchen.

Suddenly, Frankie made a shout, the sound of the shout was diluted by the music that I was listening. It drew my attention. When I was just about to get up to check on him, my mum popped her head out of the ajar kitchen door said worriedly and unsatisfactorily " Go and see what happen? You can't let him stay there alone." I obeyed and went out.

From this incident, it tells me that, she is still the one who is truly and genuinely cares for him, despite all the shouting and yelling and nagging she has done to him and all the temper she is showing him. I respect her so much in this aspect. And for this reason I can understand her attitude towards him. There was once she told me that if she hasn't pushed him this hard and being this harsh on him, coercing him to train his brain and his memorizing ability, he could have been worse, he could have forgotten all his family members, even his children, if my mum never insisted to force him to recall all the names of his family members. I was dumbfounded, and agreed with her. She was not harsh to him all the time, usually she is considerate and tender to him, she just broke out whenever she heard him forget something very simple.  

I am the only one who doesn't show tantrum at him, the most patient to him. I guess he feels most comfortable hanging around with me. And he remember me well and occasionally says I am so good to him. So I guess, my mum should continue to play the role of forcing him to train his brain, and as for me, continue to be the playmate and be the one who cherish his life. You see, even for someone like him, life should have sweetness and bitterness.