New Beginnings

Right after our trip to Disneyland at the end of November, life took a sudden change and my dad moved back in with my mom. He had too many "behavior" issues with other residents that he was asked to leave Brookdale Memory Care home. We know that my dad is not a behavior threat and realize that his only way of communicating something that may be bothering him is by physically reacting to that situation. Imagine not being able to communicate if a particular person was bothering you or a certain noise was annoying...how would you deal with that?

It was a really hard transition for my mom after living alone for 3 months, but she accepted the challenge of being his sole caregiver knowing that this wouldn't be forever! And let me tell you, no matter how hard it got for her, she rose to the occasion and did the best she could taking care of my dad! This was not only a hard time for my parents, but it was also a huge adjustment for me and my kids because we were so used to having my mom available for help or to hang out with whenever we wanted. It was almost a loss of both of my parents at this time and that was a hard thing for me to deal with.

After getting my dad back into his Mon-Fri adult daycare to help give my mom a couple hours break, she spent most of that time trying to figure out what was next. She tried in home caregivers, but my dad didn't respond great to random people in the house. She spoke with doctors about medication to help calm him. And she looked into many different options of small adult care homes and bigger care homes similar to Brookdale (thinking maybe it was just certain people that bothered him at the last place).

Finally after a little over 2 months (she could tell you the exact number of days) my mom found a new memory care home that seemed like a much better fit for my dad. The place was closer to her and farther for me than the last one, but I had to come to the realization that he wasn't the same person as he was in Brookdale. He didn't really show emotion when he saw me anymore and he didn't really interact with us like he used to. My visits didn't need to be as often as they were when he was at Brookdale and it was more important that my mom was closer so she could visit more often.

On Feb. 5th my dad moved into his new home, Pacifica. It was a smaller memory care home than he was in with only a max of 14 residents. He entered Pacifica on a 3 week trial. So for those 3 weeks we stayed on edge wondering when or if we would get a call that he was having issues there. Thankfully the caregivers grew to love my dad and he cooperated for everyone. The caregivers told us he was one of the sweetest residents and he would cooperate very easily when asked to do something. This was such a sense of relief for us, especially my mom. After the 3 weeks was up he was officially a resident there and doing as well as he could. And we were growing to love the residents he lived with (all of which seemed quite and non-bothersome) and the caregivers that loved my dad like he was their own.

This is the next chapter in our lives and we are hopeful that this place will be where he stays until the end. We need this stability because it's not an option for him to ever go back and live at home!

So funny to come see my dad and see him in someone else's sweatshirt and someone else's glasses