Life After Mommy.

Daddy started floundering after Mommy died. Big time. He didn't really seem to get how to take care of the rent or how to call about the utility bills. I watched him (try to) fill out checks for his bills. It took him over an hour to write one check. My Mom had done everything all along. He didn't even want to tell the landlord where they'd lived that he was moving out. He was too afraid, or didn't know how. Socially inept, I thought.
Though I never had any kind of close relationship with my Dad, I knew he wasn't going to make it on his own, at least not right now, and I was going to have to step in somehow and do something. He was saying all this stuff about how Mommy was haunting him. Her wishes were to be cremated and to have her ashes strewn "somewhere fun", which I hate to admit, we still haven't done (nowhere has been good enough). We have 3 separate containers with her ashes...one for Daddy, one for me, one for my brother. My sister didn't want any. Daddy had his container of ashes and was convincing himself that she was sticking around because she needed to be buried...that she needed a headstone and she'd keep taunting him until he got rid of her. He said he knew she'd keep coming in his room at night poking him, filling his room with cigarette smoke until we buried her.
I thought maybe he was in shock, that he needed to be with someone until he got things in order in his head. I told him he was welcome to come live with us. He sort of hesitated, but said okay. We helped him have a garage sale, go through Mommy's things, and get his life in order.
He moved in with me and my family within about a month of Mommy's passing. For the first two or so weeks, he seemed okay. Yes, it was annoying having my father living in my house. My father, who was never really much of a father...the man who, while I lived at home, seemed more afraid of me or annoyed at my existence than anything else. His presence, I admit, irritated me. I couldn't believe that, after all the non-committal fathering he did, that I was taking care of him, helping him. But it was the right thing to do, what I had to do.
Growing up, there were too many incidents I can think of where Daddy took the high road and guilted us kids into doing his dirty work...the adult work. When I was 13, when my Mom had her last breakdown, my Dad was a wreck. He let my sister handle almost everything...my sister who had already had enough, had furnished our house with the first new furniture my parents ever had with her own money...who had been taking the brunt of the lack of adult decisions longer than any of us. And then he had me forge my mother's signature to the Divorce Papers he never filed. Years later, when big sister was long gone and my brother had a few scuffs at school, my Dad said I should handle it, because I was "better at that stuff"...more like he just didn't want, or know how, to. So at 23 I was my brother's legal guardian and had to go to the school anytime there was a problem, which luckily was only a few times.
Funny how things work. And interesting how now, looking back, there was a pattern of irresponsibility on Daddy's part all along. A total disengagement from making adult decisons. I was convinced that this part of his personality, along with the fact that he never had any friends and isolated himself in front of the TV, was part of why he was degenerating now. That, and after losing my Mom...the person who'd taken care of his life thus far, he just crumbled under the pressure of being responsible for himself. Or I thought maybe it was karma catching up to him...that this was his lesson for all that he'd done to my Mom. Or maybe my Mom really was haunting him...maybe she really was in his room smoking and poking him, laughing at him? How the hell did I know? I've heard weirder stories. And to be honest, I wondered if he deserved it.
It occured to me that Daddy had gone from his Mother taking care of him, to my Mother taking care of him...to me. And now, with whatever this post-traumatic stress or mental thing that was plaguing him was...there was no way in hell he'd ever be able handle life on his own. One of us was going to have to help him. It kind of made me mad, but I knew we had to because it was the right thing to do. He was still a person, and a person in my family. I couldn't just watch him crumble, despite the fact that I was crumbling trying to shoulder all of this on my own. But, this was me...I am the epitome of the idiotic "fixer"/caregiver person...I think I can fix everyone. I thought I could fix people I'd dated, thought I could fix friends, thought I could fix the guy I married...so of course I thought I could fix things for my Dad! So far, I had fixed absolutely NO ONE, but hey...let's give it a shot!
During the first 5 or 6 months after my Mom passed, and all the stuff that I was doing for my Dad, I was also dealing with daily calls to settle all the hospital bills and Medi-Cal claims and all the calls to basically shut down my Mom's life...cancelling credit cards, finding out if my Dad was liable for her debts, and slowly going through her address book and writing notes to people I didn't know to tell them she'd died. This stress, compounded with my continuing health issues, a failing marriage to someone who'd been diagnosed with bi-polar, and taking care of two small children, was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Cancer treatment had been far kinder than this.
The exact amount of time is a bit of a blur now, but Daddy'd been at my house for a few weeks when he decided to go visit his Mom (Nany) in New Mexico. She was all alone since Papa died and he'd been talking (fantasizing outloud) about moving back to New Mexico forever anyway (dying to get back to the magical land of an all-day cinematic masterpiece and all-you-can-eat candy bars and malted milks for only one dollar!). So now, with my Mom gone and no one to stop him from being with his Mommy, he went. Nany had been chomping at the bit to get my Dad back there too. I think in the same phone call informing Nany about my Mom passing away, she was asking when he was "coming back to her".
But by the end of the first week with Nany, Daddy was dying to leave. Nany had always been difficult and it was as if he always fooled himself or got some sort of amnesia when it came to being honest with JUST how difficult his Mom was. We all loved Nany, don't get me wrong, but she was one tough broad to understand and get along with. My brother picked him up from the airport and Daddy stayed with him and his girlfriend for two weeks. Drove them bonkers. He insisted on doing their laundry, which meant folding my brother's girlfriend's underwear. Not something any of us want or need, ya know? I vividly remember talking to my Dad while he stayed with them because he kept saying how he was so cooped up at their house. I told him to go take a walk to the park they had...but he insisted that someone needed to stay and take care of their two dogs "in case they got into something". Any excuse to avoid the world.
Then Daddy came back to my house.
I had two children. They were 3 and 7 at the time...one was in preschool, one in elementary. I was still pretty fresh out of my own surgery and radiation, still reeling from Mommy's passing...hell, I was still reeling from Papa's passing a few years back to be honest, moving 3 times in 3 years, having a mother-in-law from hell, bi-polar husband, life in general and everything inbetween...I was just beat overall. Then we added Daddy to the mix and he was a full-time job himself. At first it was just little things, like Daddy would go to bed really late, yet would seem to be up at the crack of dawn clanking dishes, vacuuming, dusting, and generally making me insane. Many mornings between 4 and 6 am, I went downstairs, bleary-eyed, and said, "Do you really have to be doing that right this minute? It's a little early." I know he was thinking he was being helpful, but he was losing grasp at the "appropriate-ness" of certain things, like time. He never seemed to know what actual time it was.
He started telling us to come look at the people outside...people playing "the statue game". In neighbor's yards, there were tall green men that suspiciously looked just like the tall bush Daddy'd seen there the day before. There was a lady with bright rose-red hair, in the same exact spot the other neighbor's red rose bushes were. There was the 7 foot tall "shadow lady" that lurked in the entryway of the neighbors house across the street. And, of course, then the little kids showed up, my Mom started blowing smoke in his face at night so he couldn't sleep. Even people in my backyard were dancing at all hours.
It had been about a year after Mommy's passing that Daddy started saying he'd like to get "his own place". Of course he didn't know how, so I helped him. I didn't realize what was really wrong with him at the time, and any doctor visit I went to with him proved fruitless. One doctor said he was just depressed, despite the fact that depressed people don't hallucinate. I was asking his doctors if they thought it was even a good idea that he live alone...but they thought maybe he'd snap out of it, you know, since nothing was really wrong with him anyway as far as they were concerned...so we figured we'd give it a shot, helping him get a place.
After looking at many apartments, and considering he lived only on Social Security, I found a pretty nice, quite, affordable Senior Complex in my city. I would've lived at this place, it was really nice and well-kept. All the people who lived there were so friendly and warm, and everyone checked in on each other and tried to involve everyone in their gatherings. I knew he wouldn't socialize, but it was worth hoping something else inside him would snap and he'd make a friend or two. I got him all ready with furniture, got his utilities set up, daily necessities, food, etc. and he was set.
For about two weeks.

Then the calls began...and I had to go over there everyday.
The manager would call saying that Daddy was getting the other residents upset...he was insisting there were people trying to steal his TV, or car, or clothes, or silverware.
The Police were called when Daddy was screaming and running down the sidewalk because there was a group of hoodlums in his car when he went to get in it. They wouldn't get out and he was having an argument with them to leave.
Daddy started calling upwards of, seriously, 17 times a day sometimes. Someone had stolen his wallet again. Someone had taken one of every pair of shoes he owned. Someone rearranged his furniture while he was sleeping. There were maintenance crews on the roof all day and night, doing work on the air conditioning units. Tiny, dirty, hungry kids showed up asking for food. Daily I spent hours just looking for things he'd hidden from himself. When I dared to not be home to answer my phone, like when I was so rude and went grocery shopping or to pick up the kids from school, he'd curse me on my message machine, then call 5 minutes later to nicely ask if I'd seen his wallet. 5 minutes after that, he'd leave another message saying something like, "I know you don't give a shit about me but I thought you could at least answer your fucking phone!" In another 5 minutes he'd be crying, saying I was his whole life now, and that he wished I would love him back.
Then the Chair Man showed up. Oh, Chair Man...the bain of my existence for such a long time! I should have just committed myself to a sanitarium at this point, because he said I was an assholes "pretending" to NOT see what he saw...he said I was trying to make him look crazy. One Dr. I took him to basically agreed with my Dad...with me sitting there. This Dr. said she thought my Dad was just nervous after all the stressful things that had happened to him, and that she felt that maybe us kids were just "too busy with our own lives to be bothered with old Dad and were looking for a way to rid ourselves of him".
Saying I was furious is far from an understatement. What nerve to come up with such nonsense. I was my Dad's freakin' only advocate...I ran over to help him at all hours, I sacrificed time with my kids, dragged them with me most times when 911 was called, and had been literally doing everything for him since the second my Mom passed away. We'd helped him pay for many things he couldn't afford, bought him all the necessities to move, furniture, food. And if time was money, I'd easily spent millions. I was the only one trying to help my Dad, and THIS was what I got? Condescending Doctors with opinions based on what? Unfreakin' real.
After this, I looked for new Doctors. I did more research about meds and whether he even needed any, or was this just nature taking its course? I read everything I could about the types of dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, mental illnesses, and did searches about his specific symptoms. I kept coming across "Lewy Bodies", and from the symptoms it explained on every site I came across, my Dad's picture could've been posted right next to it. He was the poster boy for Lewy Body Dementia, no doubt.
In the meantime, the Chair Man was more active than ever.
The Chair Man was a man that could mold himself into the shape of Daddy's recliner. He was like a chameleon and could change his color too. Daddy tried putting a blanket over the chair, and Chair Man just blended right into it. Damn you, Chair Man! Daddy and Chair man had screaming matches. Daddy hit Chair man, hit him good. Knocked him out. Then Chair man tried hitting back but he wasn't fast enough. Chair man threatened to kill Daddy, so Daddy had the Police come to get rid of Chair Man. Thank God for the very understanding Police Officers that came, and the manager as well. They just tried to calm Daddy down.
Because I was having to drop everything and haul my small kids over to Daddy's several times a day now to find out what the latest drama was, the decision was clear: despite his idiot Doctors so-called professional opinion, I KNEW Daddy needed full-time help, or I was going to have to move far away and change my name and let my siblings deal with this. My kids were being exposed to things they shouldn't be and they were getting annoyed and scared by Grandpa's antics. They didn't want to go anywhere near my Dad at this point, and honestly, I worried what my Dad's delusions would make him see next...if my kids were even safe around him. I had no idea.
I had to be the bad guy and break it to Daddy that there was no way in hell he was driving anymore. I tried reasoning with him that he could have one of his hallucinations while driving and kill himself or someone else. I got nowhere. He said IIIII was the one "hallucinating" and that he'd get back in control of his life away from me one day and put me in jail for trying to make him look crazy. My brother tried telling him driving wasn't a good idea and that we were doing what was best and safest for everyone. But I was the evil one who'd taken away his freedom. Stupidly, I let Daddy promise me he wouldn't drive (he still had his keys and car), until a few days later he showed up at my house and asked me how he'd gotten there. He got agitated when we said we'd drive him home, so I told my then-husband to secretly follow him when he left. Daddy was all over the place. Then-husband said Daddy kept turning around, making crazy last-minute lane changes, u-turns, and it took him a really long time to get home. I called him when he was home and asked how the drive was, and he said with a snap, "Just FIIIINE, thank you Maam.". I told him what then-husband had seen and Daddy was not happy. We'd violated him. How dare we accuse him of not being a safe driver!
I wrote long letters about what was happening for the Doctors to read before we went to his now numerous Doctor visits. We had to get an official diagnosis, medication, something. Around this same time, I realized we needed to get Power of Attorney because Daddy was clearly nearing the end of making rational decisions on his own. This was just the beginning of far too much legal nonsense and wastes of time and money.
One of his VA Dr.'s gave me a list of his current conditions at one visit. To my shock, Daddy had actually already been diagnosed with "Dementia with nonspecific psychosis" almost 3 years earlier. Why didn't we know that? Did he know that? Did my Mom? How did they even figure that out considering my Dad never seemed to tell the Doctors anything besides answering the few Kindergarten-level questions they'd ask him?
We were having a hard time getting anywhere with his medical care. Because Daddy could sit calmly for 10 minutes at a Dr. visit, tell them what day it was and what his name was, they said he was fine. Fine? What about all the people? What about the delusions? What about the complete lack of common sense or logic that should tell him it really wouldn't make any sense that there would be a man on a horse painting his house? For crying out loud, people!
Daddy stayed living in his little apartment while we figured out what to do. I was over there everyday at least once, usually more. My first search for a senior "care" residence began. In the meantime, his hallucinations...the Chair Man, the constant calls, me going over there to find his apartment in complete disarray, him half shaved, in mismatched clothes, it was just too much to handle even if I was super-rich, on my own, single, with no kids and in great health. I couldn't handle this. No way. He was having some sort of monumental breakdown and nothing I did helped. Looking at all the facilities was overwhelming. They all claimed to be the best, give the best care, and it was hard to find anyone I knew that had any experience with facilites to get any sort of reference. A small handful of people had "heard about" a few places when their grandparents were admitted to one, but no one my age really had a clue where to look or what I should do...and not one had any actual experience in the decision-making process of placing a parent in a home. The few that had little knowledge about places their grandparents had gone to had these half-baked glowing reviews of what they'd "heard" about the facilities...and when I checked them out...oh dear God. Horrible, decrepit pits of despair.
Most of the friends I had in town started disappearing on me when looking after my Dad became a real-live responsibility. People my age were worried about manicures, pre-schools and the PTA. I'd never even had a manicure, the PTA was full of superficial, bored women with some sort of eating disorder, and I just didn't have the time or patience to be worrying about whether I could help sell enough soy candles to send the 6th graders to the cheese factory. Some sort of dementia was ruling my life on top of everything else I was handling, and I am not one to mince words with people with no priorities other than their bi-monthly root touch-up.
Tangent aside, after one too many calls about his hallucinations, someone where he lived had called 911. I don't blame them, but Daddy ended up getting admitted to the VA Geriatric Psych Ward in Menlo Park. It was supposed to be a temporary thing, about a one week stay, just to get his meds straight and figure out just what was happening. I had my brother drive him out there because I was not about to take the kids out of school and subject them to going to drop Grampa off at the looney bin over an hour away. We had NO idea what kind of place this really was.
I found out he'd been on and off a couple of different anti-depressants and anti-psychotics for a few years, unbeknownst to us. And since my Mom died, I found out he was getting mixed up about his meds...taking two doses or skipping them, then taking 3 days worth at a time. I only knew this after I'd started doing my own research online and took a serious interest in everything he was or possibly wasn't doing...that the disease I thought he may have would confuse him to the point of not knowing what to do or when. I read all about every medication he was on, the side effects versus the possible benefits, and it was startling. I started counting his meds and within days he'd be out, so I knew he was mixing his days up. I confiscated his meds and gave them to him myself. He didn't like that, and often argued that he'd already taken what I was giving him, or that I hadn't been there for days to see him. As if I even had a few hours apart from him at this point! We had no idea what was really affecting him...was it this dementia with psychosis we never knew about? Alzheimer's? Was he just crazy? Schizophrenic? This Lewy Body thing?
While in the psych ward, Daddy slid even further. They would let him call on a payphone several times a day and he was more delusional and paranoid than ever. I went to visit him and in one week, he looked like he'd aged 20 years. He had almost a full beard, and, if you knew my Dad, that is just unacceptable...he NEVER had facial hair. He also looked like he had lost at least 15 pounds and his face was sallow and sunken in. He told me they wouldn't let him leave his room, and that someone was beating him. He did have bruises all over him. Dark purple and black bruises everywhere. EVERYwhere.
I asked to see the room he was staying in. The refused to let me in. I questioned what was going on with his meds and when they would have them straightened out so we could bring him home? They said I wouldn't be taking him out, that they'd made him a ward of the State and they would make his decisions now...that he was too far gone. They were injecting him with Haldol every few hours. I asked about the bruises and they said it was from when he was being combative and they injected him with more Haldol.
Holy shit. What happened here?
First, Doctors treat us like monsters, as if we are trying to pawn off our Dad somewhere. Then they say there's nothing wrong with him, we find out he was already diagnosed with Dementia (but he's fine, they say)...but now he's a ward of the state because he's too far gone and we might as well pretend he doesn't exist to us?
I felt like I was being PUNK'd. This was not happening.What. The. Fuck.
Over the next week, I phoned every person and agency I could find, and no one would call me back. The Psychiatrist at the unit Daddy was in wasn't very helpful and discouraged us even coming to see him now. I'm sorry...WHAT??? I was told we should just leave him there, and forget about him for a while. I was NOT doing that. What the hell?
I had a monumental meltdown. My then-husband was telling me to just leave my Dad in looney bin. I was thinking that I may drop HIS ass off at a different looney bin on my way to see my Dad...I was pretty damn sick of his crazy crap too. I drove all the way out there the next day, and INSISTED my Dad be released. Of course, the Doctors didn't want anything to do with me anymore. I'd gone against their decision, and they were GOD. I was told I could have 'legal ramifications' for taking a ward of the State without their consent. Funny though, after I pointed out all the facts: that from what I'd read, people with Dementia shouldn't even be given any anti-psychotics like the Haldol they were continually injecting him with and that for some reason they refused to allow me to inspect my Dad's room, they backed off. I will never know what really happened there. I probably don't want to know. They had their Social Worker contact me to say my Dad needed to be committed full-time and she gave the names of some other psych wards I could consider. I said something to the extent of re-analyzing just WHO should be commited to that hellhole.
So, Daddy was sprung from the nuthouse, and we brought him home to our house. He didn't want to be at his apartment anymore and we knew he couldn't handle that anyway, so I gave notice at his place and he stayed with us for a while again.
Daddy's Mom, Nany, was not doing well, and had some sort of Dementia-like illness coincidentally at this time too. She had caregivers coming in her home 24 hours a day. She thought they were just new friends that liked to hang out with her and help her for free. If Nany had known she was PAYING for these people to sit with her, oh dear god, all hell would've broken loose. Nany had also declined rapidly after her husband's (Papa's) death. It was like something had snapped, broken in her brain that day...sorta like my Dad. She was very paranoid about people taking her things. Granted, there were many pieces of expensive jewelery missing, but she had hidden things from herself before and we had no idea whether they'd eventually turn up like they always did. Nany also had started hoarding papers she thought were important in shoe boxes she insisted on keeping right next to the recliner she 'lived in'. She wouldn't sleep in a bed, and she'd sit all day in her chair, and fall asleep in it at night. She'd put this fuzzy blanket over her head and sleep like that. She was convinced that some sort of "fuzz" from the carpet or air or somewhere was getting into her lungs and mouth. She was constantly trying to get rid of the fuzz.
I had driven alone with just my little kids to visit Nany in New Mexico after Papa died (before the caregivers) and I had to haul out 4 large kitchen-size garbage bags of expired or actually rotten food from her cabinets and refrigerator. And I had to clean her bathrooms from top to bottom. They looked like someone had decided to scrawl on the walls with poo. There was splattered urine or fecal matter on the cabinets, faucet, walls, carpet. Oh boy, and she was livid with me. She said, "Oh you just think your something else, don't you? Coming in here, taking over, throwing out all that food I paid good money for!" I assured her that I was going to use my own money to replace all the food I so carelessly tossed out. I was beyond pissed that the family members back there had done absolutely nothing to help her...they had insisted they were helping her clean and had been doing her grocery shopping once a week. The hell they were. The food I threw out had long been expired or was literally moldy, and it was pretty obvious that nothing was being cleaned, and hadn't been for quite some time.
But now that Nany had paid caregivers there helping her all day and night, we talked to Daddy about staying with her for a while. I really didn't like the idea of him being all the way in New Mexico, especially when I knew the relatives couldn't be trusted, and I knew Nany was gonna drive him nuts. But, I assumed there'd be no more rotten food or foul bathrooms to tend to, and there were 3 caregivers taking shifts with Nany that we could pay to keep an eye on him until we could figure something else out. Daddy decided he could help Nany if he moved there, and we tried to make him think he had made the decision himself. Neither my brother nor I could reasonably take care of our Dad, we already knew that, and our sister had removed herself from our family for her own reasons many years ago...not to mention she lived in Washington and Daddy said he was not about to live there (he hated the cold).
He was fine at Nany's for the first few weeks. Then the hallucinations began again. And the running into walls and falling began. Nany was driving him crazy. He said she was crazy, wouldn't shut up, wouldn't stop yelling at everyone, telling him he was worthless. He said the caregivers were having sex with each other (they were sisters, so I would hope that wasn't really true). He said they'd have all-day parties and there were people in his room, women getting into his bed. He was more agitated than usual with everyone. The whole issue was a nightmare to handle by phone in another state so we decided to visit to see what was really going on there.
My then-husband and I drove with the kids to New Mexico. We'd been paying Nany's Caregivers to take care of Dad too, which was stressful because all Daddy had was his Social Security check every month. No savings. No property, nothing. But they wanted more money, even though family members who randomly came to visit said the caregivers really weren't doing anything for my Dad at all besides occasionally redirecting him to the bathroom.
When we arrived, we found that Nany really had no idea who we were. I'd just seen her about 6 months before this, when she was her usual sassy self. But now, literally every few minutes she'd say, "Well, now, who are you again?" When I'd tell her, she'd say, "Oh, really? We have a Lainie in our family too, do you know her?". I couldn't believe it. Just like that. I didn't exist to her anymore. It had only been in the last 3 or so months that she stopped being able to use the phone, but I'd still call her, and the caregivers would give her the phone. She'd still talk to me and ask all the usual questions like she knew who I was. She'd just known me a few weeks ago, and now she didn't. Was this normal for dementia or Alzheimer's?
We went back home to CA after about a week stay and Daddy still wanted to stay with Nany in NM longer. He said they still needed his help but he wanted to get a bike to get a break from them sometimes. I called around to see who may have a 3 wheeler...I did not trust his balance for a regular bike. I found this snazzy blue 3 wheeler with a basket and bought it for him. What we heard from the caregivers after we left, that's all he did: ride that bike. Unfortunately he took a few falls, nothing serious, but he wouldn't stop riding it. Over the next few months, Nany declined quickly. She suddenly didn't know how to swallow anymore, and couldn't eat or move. She passed away January 3rd, 2007.
Knowing all the family drama that was about to unfold with Nany's passing...really long story there, but my Dad's sister, who lived in New Mexico with her 8 grown kids and theirs, and theirs, etc. were a bunch that my Nany (and especially Papa) did NOT want to get their hands on the house or anything else. These were the same family members that had supposedly been looking in on Nany when her house was full of poop and rotting food. I could only imagine what I was in for.
Papa had made some good decisons with money, so Nany had been left with a few hundred thousand dollars, and a house, and this would all now be our Dad's. My brother was going with me, and we discussed how we knew we were about to have to fight with all the relatives who would inevitably come out of the woodwork and claim love and family loyalty as their claim to it all. Oh and did they.
Because our Dad was the executor of Nany's Will, named as the joint tenant on the house AND on her bank accounts/CD's, and because we were his Power of Attorney given his state of mind, Nany's affairs became ours. Nightmare and a half. Daddy could not reasonably stay living at Nany's house, which he now owned (his first time being a homeowner!) because the family back there could not be trusted and he had no way to really take care of himself, so we were packing his things and bringing him back to California. In the week we were there for Nany's funeral, me and my brother fixed things in the house, got it up for sale, had the vulture relatives put post-its on the furniture they claimed was theirs, and ended up splitting half the money in the CD's with Daddy's sister. Though Nany and Papa strictly forbid it and the Will nowhere stated he had to, Daddy was guilted into giving her $200,000. That is $200,000 that I would have no problem with her having if she'd use it for herself, but she gave most of it to her unappreciative, drug-using and/or thief kids...who ended up getting the rest a few months later when she too, passed away. I guess in the end, it's "just money", and it's money he didn't have to begin with, but I already knew what it was going to cost to take care of Daddy...and him having that money would make it much easier to find a respectable, clean care home for him that had good people working there (if that existed). We had no idea how long his life would be, or if he'd outlive the money he'd have left. I know, I know, it could be so much worse...he could still have no money...but it infuriated me that after everything, all the things that the relatives stole from Nany...(we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in jewelery among other things)...that they ended up with even more. It's just not right.
Daddy decided he wanted to go visit our sister in Washington before coming back to CA, so we set him up with a flight there. He stayed about 3 weeks at her house while we looked for some sort of assisted-living situation here in CA. He seemed to do okay while at our sister's house...she said he basically just wandered around and had to be told where things were all the time, but by this time, we were noticing a pattern...that he was always "okay" for the first few weeks in a new environment.
From all the research I was doing online or in books, I was absolutely convinced that Daddy had Dementia with Lewy Bodies. I made him an appt. with a new Dr. when he got back from Washington, and planned on getting this mess straightened out.
In the meantime, I was dealing with a real estate agent in New Mexico via phone, stupid relatives who'd gone in the house and stolen appliances, then filed a false insurance claim, and I was talking to a lawyer about getting all Dad's financial nonsense in order. Literally everyday I was on phone for hours. I never imagined all the crap that could possibly happen. And this was just the beginning.