The Arrows and Daggers and Golf Balls of Caregiving

Dementia, in addition to affecting memory, can often cause unusual behaviors. Romeo experiences this from time to time. Since he's been living in the nursing home, he has taken on a behavior not like him. I know it's dementia speaking and acting, that it's not him. Still, it's difficult.

Nearly every day in a week, Romeo will mentally "attack" me with arrows and daggers. It always happens at the top of my first visit of the day (since I live so close to the nursing home, I often split visits during the day). I never know who I will be greeted by on any given day -- my sweet Romeo, or the attacking marauder Romeo.

The sweet Romeo will smile when I first walk in his room. He'll hold out his hand for me to take, and we'll sit quietly for a few minutes. The attacking Romeo is quite different. He will stare at me with anger in his eyes, propelling the poisoned arrows and daggers launched toward me. When this happens, my heart literally sinks to my stomach, and I close my eyes for a moment and direct my breathing to my gut, where the emotional pain (his emotional pain or mine?) settles.

I sit and listen to his list of complaints. Some I can act on, most of them not. They are products of his dementia, misconceptions on his part, and logic is a language he no longer speaks or understands.

So I take his arrows and daggers, dissolve them, and get on with the day. I often feel like a golf ball hitting a steel plate at high speed:

The Aftermath of the Retreat, or How Dementia Can Really Mess Things Up

There was something horribly wrong surrounding Romeo. I sensed it just before I entered his room at the nursing home, in the hall before I ever saw him. All that day, I had been at a retreat in the mountains above Boulder and hadn't been able to come to see him until well after his dinner time.

To help Romeo remember that I wouldn't be able to see him until late on retreat day, to prepare him for my delayed visit, we worked together for a week before the retreat. I drilled him on what was likely to be my arrival time that evening. This technique had worked before. It was the only one that did anymore. That is, until now.

I entered his room, the partially drawn curtain between Romeo and his roommate allowing a view only of Romeo's feet and legs. He was tucked under the covers, seemingly in bed for the night, much earlier than usual. As I came closer, I saw that the bed had been lowered so it sat about six inches off the floor. A mat had been placed on the floor beside the bed. This is the typical evening arrangement, precautions to prevent any injury if Romeo happened to fall out of bed during the night.

He saw me come to the side of his bed. And he glared at me. Glared at me. Daggers shot from his eyes, heading my way, hundreds of tiny daggers. I took the hit. I took all of them. And I took them gladly because I knew, without a word having been spoken from either of us, that Romeo had forgotten that today I would be late. He did not remember that I would be in the mountains and not be able to see him until later in the day, much later.

The daggers pierced my skin, traveled to my heart, my stomach, my lungs, my throat. No part of my body escaped injury. The wounds hurt; I was in great pain. But I also knew that Romeo's wounds hurt more, that his pain was much greater. His pain manufactured and then launched the daggers that attacked me. His pain was the wound and hurt of abandonment. He thought I had left him that day. He thought I was gone for good, would never come back. He was frightened and angry, and this pain had been simmering in him all day. He was a pressure cooker of loneliness and fear, and it was now time for him to blow and for me to clean up the mess.

We sat together as his hurt and pain and fear and my hurt and pain and fear became acquainted, until we all were simply one happy family of hurt, pain, fear, loneliness, abandonment. We sat, my hand holding his, each of us crying like abandoned kittens, each of us forgiving the other, forgiving ourselves, forgiving Romeo's dementia, forgiving the Universe. Until finally, finally, finally...until finally, we laughed.