In the evening, after the last two nights of very little sleep, I decided that I would give Daddy some antihistamine (one dose of Benadryl at 8pm) to see if it helped him go to sleep earlier than 1 or 2 am. Then-husband had a test that he needed to leave at 4 am for (and drive two hours to get to), so not sleeping could not be an option. Period. Dad's been off all of his other meds for a few days now, so I wasn't afraid of any drug-interactions...unlike all the craziness with the prescriptions he's been given for far too long. What I was afraid of was that it would have the opposite effect on him. My ESP was right on target.
Then-husband and I watched a movie downstairs and Daddy sat with us for about two seconds, then he got up and started wandering. Then he tried to bring a kitchen table chair to the living room, turn it around backwards and sit in it like a cowboy or something. I had to catch him from falling over...and this is not an easy feat, as my Dad weighs about 225 pounds and I am about half of that. Then Dad said he "needed to go cool off and get air" which we thought meant he wanted to go outside, so we said it was still pretty hot out...and he laughed at us as if we were just making excuses to ruin what he wanted to do again. He said he just wanted to go to his room, so WHY were we trying to confuse him? The nerve.
He laid down in his room for about a half hour until he started the peeking thing again. Peeeek outside the door, scoot inside. Peeeeeeeek outside the door, scoot back inside. Then he poked his head out and started saying loudly that we needed to come take care of the tub before it overflowed. This went on for a while and he was getting genuinely pissed off that we had "built his bed on top of the damn tub of water". How unbelievably rude and stupid of us! He was completely amped up and had NO grip on reality.
About the time we were done with the movie and were headed upstairs, Daddy came out and started doing circles in the kitchen. We asked if he needed help getting something and he very flatly said that he was just trying to get to his room (Duh! How could we NOT see that?). We pointed the direction of his room and he laughed again. He said, "Well, I KNOW that, just where the hell did you think I was going, anyway? But now you screwed the whole thing up and got me all turned around, so now I have to start over and it's going to take me even longer to get there."
Because turning around, going the RIGHT way and walking 3 feet to your room is JUST not an option. Sigh.
So we go to bed. Then-husband points out that I am the only one on night duty tonight. Really? You mean, like it usually is? Well that's weird.
Within minutes, loud banging was coming from downstairs.
To shorten this slightly, I will do a summary to cover the next 6 hours. About every 20 minutes, Dad rammed into the wall, fell off his bed, or walked into his TV (which is mounted high up on the wall). There was finally a brief period of time where I think he actually fell asleep, but then at about 4 am, our idiotic next door neighbors weiner dogs started going ape shit over god knows what. Daddy woke up and started screaming.
At about 4:30 and 5am, same thing with the dogs and Daddy screamed that people were trying to get in the house, that they were banging at the door and coming out of the closet. I assured him that we were the only ones there, and reminded him about the NO SCREAMING RULE. He said I just didn't understand.
We've had nothing but problems from the a-hole and his dogs next door. For the two years this guy's lived here, the first two dogs he had barked all day and night. A week before we knew Daddy was coming, I excitedly received my order in the mail...a sonic dog shutter-upper. I've mounted it at our upstairs bathroom window facing the side of his house where they come out of their doggy door and start wreaking havoc on everyone's sanity.
Last night the sonic thing didn't help because they were barking from inside the garage (an echo chamber of doom) and so it didn't set off the sonic blaster. There's a remote that I kept hitting that turns it on, but since they were in the garage, it helped very little.
On top of everything else, I will NOT have these dogs be yet another reason my Dad won't sleep. Not that talking to the guy will help, because he's this 20-something year old, stick-up-his-ass, white-bread boy who thinks he's black when he's drunk, and any attempts at reasoning with him in the past has been pointless. He's the idiot in your neighborhood who thinks he's "hot" and doesn't come outside unless his shirt's off...and he's the guy that only remembers to take his garbage out at 11 pm, which is also when he decides it's a good idea to tear up and stuff a year's worth of cardboard in the recycle bin...loudly. This guy says us being annoyed at his dogs barking could be remedied by keeping our windows closed. Yeah, this guy is FULL of common sense.
I did call the city about his dogs recently though when suddenly there were EIGHT dogs...3 adults and 5 puppies...all barking every 10 minutes. Animal Control came out and it sounded as if none of the dogs were licensed, which would mean big fines, but the freakin' dogs are STILL there. Maybe I need to call them again.
Anyway, at 5 am, I gave up on any sleep. The kiddies wake up around 6 am, so what's the point?
Another day of running on fumes.
Daddy ended up sleeping from 5 am to 10 am. 5 solid hours of sleep. Another record...but can we rearrange the TIMES, please? I made him breakfast and he went back to his bed and is asleep again.
I've notice from personal experience now, and from others' stories, that maybe a sleep aid can help...but it seems that people with this disease metabolize everything much slower and it doesn't take effect until everyone else is already ready to wake up for the next day. Tonight I will try the antihistamine again, but I will give it to him hours earlier.
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