In a World Gone Mad: Monday 11 May 2020

Monday 11 May 2020

Two nights ago, Arthur went to bed at ten thirty, he was up again at eleven. It wasn’t a problem, we were sitting in bed watching telly, but it means one of us getting up and putting a dressing gown on—l normally put on a pair of leggings and a shirt because I don’t like being undressed in front of Arthur. Max went this time and spent ten minutes resettling him. He was up again at two. Max still had the telly on and had been downstairs another twice by then for a cigarette. His constant up and down is probably as bad, if not worse than Arthur’s, and then Andy will go down for a cig. It’s constant traffic up and down the stairs all night, every sodding, bloody night. I wake up every time Max leaves the room and I wake up when he comes back in. There’s no escape.

At two o’clock I heard shouting, Max was rushing to get into his dressing gown, and I opened one eye and closed it again.  I was cooked.

Max ran downstairs to find Arthur and Andy going at it. I’m worried about Andy, he split with his girlfriend a couple of weeks ago which has isolated him from all his friends. Andy and Bonnie work together and his social circle was made up of his girlfriend and the other people they work with. He has deleted his chat group. He has been spending more time in the garden with us and we have MTG and music nights, but he’s very alone and feeling it.

Arthur wandered downstairs and saw Andy sitting at the kitchen table where he was drinking alone. It was lovely of Andy to buy me a bottle of vodka for my birthday—but he felt the need to help me drink it too.

Arthur has no idea who his grandson is and tried to throw him out of the house.

‘If you don’t get out of my house, I’ll knock you out.’

‘Yeah, try it and see what you get.’

It got very dramatic and by the time Max got to them they were squared up with fists raised. Arthur with no coat to take off in the old-fashioned pre-fight norm, flung off his dressing gown and was jabbing at Andy like a naked gladiator from the Colosseum—delete image of ripping muscle and golden skirted loincloth and replace with naked wrinkly old man.

We had two levels of crazy: in the red corner we have Alzheimer’s delusional. And in the blue corner we have, paranoid, post-addict drunken delusional.  Max split them up before any damage was done and settled Arthur back in bed.

He had two hours of dealing with Andy who had replenished his glass of neat vodka.  He doesn’t drink often, but he binges, and they follow a strict formula—he shouts at whoever is near at stage whatever of inebriation and in the next stage we get the maudlin, teary, I -just-want-to-die phase. He was sorry for arguing with granddad, ‘It was the drink talking.’ Then he decided he was the worst human being on earth for squaring up to an old man. Max had two hours of how Andy knows we all hate him and want him to die.

He is vulnerable, isolated and in the highest suicide risk group of young men between fifteen and twenty-five. Max listened, talked calmly and sent him to bed at dawn.  I was oblivious and slept through it—just another normal night for us.

Fifteen hours later, after the usual madness and spitting, we put Arthur to bed. Ten minutes after he was up again—and every ten minute after that until 06:00 yesterday morning.

I heard him running down the stairs shouting.

‘Just a minute.’

This was followed by a hell of a knock on the door.  I woke suddenly in a fugue panic.  My first thought on hearing the loud knock was that something had happened to one of my kids or grandkids, or that Ivor had died.

I ran downstairs.

There was nobody there. Arthur had ‘pretended’ that there was somebody there and was knocking to wake the whole house up and get some attention. Arthur up—all up. I was right behind him still pulling my leggings up. The gate was still shut. Logic told me that anybody there would have knocked again, and I’d have heard the gate creaking.  And if it was important, I have my phone beside me.

I led him to his room and went back to bed.

I couldn’t sleep, I had it in my head that something had happened to my family.

Half an hour later and I heard him downstairs again.

I got up, got dressed and met him in the downstairs hall. He was agitated and shouting.

‘Who put me to bed?’

‘Nobody put you to bed Arthur, you put yourself to bed.’

‘Well I’ve woken up in some woman’s bed with no clothes on. Did you take my clothes off?’

‘You were in your bed, love. It’s okay come on.’

‘Are we going back to bed?’

He came towards me with his arms out, tilted his head to one side with his mouth open, grabbed me and tried to snog me.

‘Woah, no Arthur, I’m your daughter-in-law. It’s okay, you’re just a bit confused, let’s get you back to bed.’

‘Are you coming with me?’

‘No, but I’ll bring you a cup of tea.’

Max laughed and said he must have had a nightmare…thank you my love, and Marty thought it was hilarious.

Arthur’s aggression is escalating but it’s pronounced with the animals.  We still have the problem that he’ll call the dog.

‘Come here, there’s a good doggy-woggy, good boy.’

And he gives her a biscuit. The next time he eats, he yells at her and gets angry. The poor dog is confused and has taken to hiding in corners of the room and trying to get herself under the sofa to hide from him.

Teagan only begs from him.

I made Arthur his lunch and gave it to him sitting in the garden. He glared at Teagan and I moved her. He called her back over and after taking one bite of a quarter of his sandwich he handed Teagan the rest. I called her away again and asked Arthur not to feed her. He saw his backside because he does what he wants to do.

Tegan by this point didn’t know where she should be.

Arthur glared at her again and picked up his next piece of sandwich. Teagan was straight by his side begging.

‘Get away. Get Away.’

I stood up to move Teagan.

‘Get that bloody dog tied to the gate.’

‘Excuse me? I will not tie my dog up.’

Before he answered he lashed out with a backhanded fist and caught Teagan on the face.  I was furious.

‘Don’t you ever, ever, hit my dog again. Nobody hits my animals. Do you understand me.’

‘Or what? What are you going to do about it?’

‘I’m going to stop you, that’s what?’

Max ran from the kitchen and took over.

‘It’s okay, Max, I’m dealing with this.’ I was annoyed because when Arthur and I are alone, I have to be able to deal with him. But Max to the rescue.  Arthur was standing again and fighting himself to get out of his jumper to punch me. Max pushed him into his seat.

‘Don’t you ever hit one of our animals, and don’t you dare shout at my wife. Do you hear me?’

‘I didn’t hit the dog. She’s a liar. Who do you think you’re pushing around? I’ll knock you out, boy. I did not hit your wife. I would not hit a woman. Why doesn’t anybody believe me?

It turned into a comedy when Max tried to take Arthur’s plate from him.

‘I’ll tell you what? If we’re going to have this every bloody mealtime, you can go without lunch. How does that grab you?’

They fought over the plate, to me—to you—to me. Arthur’s face set like stone and he wasn’t giving up his lunch for anything.

Andy jumped to my defence and said that he had hit the dog. Afterwards, I felt terrible and said that I’d over reacted. I felt that I hadn’t stopped short of bullying Arthur towering over him and shouting at him. He didn’t hurt Teagan and most of the force was deflected by Teagan moving out of the way when she saw it coming. She didn’t even yelp. Andy said that I didn’t overreact, and he needed to be told that hitting Teagan is unacceptable.

I felt bad because I lost my cool. I didn’t respond in a controlled manner and yelled back at him and would have stopped him if he’d gone to hurt her again with whatever force was necessary to stop him, which would ultimately have been drop and roll to restrain him.

He has to be stopped because this behaviour is only going to escalate with the progression of the disease. When this is all over, what if our grandchildren are here and he lashes out at one of them? The other thing is that Teagan is as soft as butter—but she is a big powerful German Shepherd.  When she came to us, she was untrained and was so powerful that she pulled muscles in my arms and shoulders because she pulled that hard. I can only just hold her. What if she retaliated? she has never shown any aggression and loves Arthur—though she is getting wary of him. If she attacked, she could take his face off.

We had a letter from Social Services today—the first time they’ve ever made contact with us. It was a compliments slip and a list of care homes in our area with a price list. This is not what we have asked for. We need Day Care for when we go back to work—or what we really need is some fucking help.  His care is twenty-four hours a day every day.  When I write, Max has to be with him. When Max does his music, I have to be with him. There is no respite day or night.

Arthur’s house is still empty, it hasn’t been let yet because he’s only been in it for ten months and it was pristine, but he’s done a lot of damage to it that needs to be put right and we have to buy a new boiler because Arthur has taken it apart and thrown some of the parts away.

Max is the eldest son and we took on all of Arthur’s care. When he moved in with us, we said that we’d take medical Power of Attorney so that we can make any medical decision that he needs, such as a DNR—Do Not Resuscitate.  We asked that as second in line, Kevin take Legal Power of Attorney to oversee his financial arrangements. The three brothers consult on all decisions but we—and me in particular—didn’t want the responsibility of Arthur’s finances while he’s living with us so that there are no arguments over his money. It means that if we need any money for Arthur, we have to go through Kevin to get it. I like it like that and, to date, we’ve only taken money to buy him a new wardrobe because his was built in—until he destroyed it. We don’t touch his pension or any of his bank accounts.

We said that feeding four is no more expensive than feeding three, but Arthur costs us a fortune. We tend to not eat through the day, but he has to have three square meals a day and half a dozen snacks. Max feels a responsibility to make ‘proper’ meals for him every night so he’s buying a lot more meat and spending half of everyday cooking. He’s putting a lot of pressure on himself that doesn’t need to be there and we’re throwing more food out than we ever have before. Yesterday he cooked four quid’s worth of chicken for the animals because it had gone out of date. What’s wrong with scrambled egg on toast one night? Instead of planning meals for seven nights, just plan for five and we’ll live on the cupboards and freezer the other two—but Max won’t let up on himself.  

Yesterday we went to mow Arthur’s lawns and clean the house. We brought home some of his favourite books and pictures. We bought him a large garden shelving unit to use as a bookcase last week.  Max went up with him to ask where he wanted his pictures hanging and put them all up for him. An hour later, Arthur had pulled every picture off of the wall and most of the hooks with them.  He had one hanging over his wardrobe door handles and the rest we balanced around the room. He said he couldn’t look at them properly when they were hanging up. He’d taken every book off the shelves. He took his clothes out of his drawers and put them on the bookcase.  He put some books in his clothes drawers so that they wouldn’t get stolen. He had them balanced on his coffee table, on the empty side of his bed, on the radiator, on his windowsill and standing across the threshold of his door so that he couldn’t get out and when Max, knocked and went in, he knocked them all over. Arthur flew into a temper and yelled the house down.

Max was frustrated after making it nice for him, but it’s his room, his stuff, he can do what he likes if it keeps him quiet.

It’s getting more difficult every day and the lack of sleep is unbearable.