Leaving my husband with dementia for the weekend.

Mimi50

Hello everyone I am leaving tomorrow. To work my Nanny gig. The neighbors and our son. Are checking on my DH. I really get very anxious about leaving him. Feel guilty too. Does anyone have suggestions that could help. Myself and my DH be less anxious while I am gone.

Joe C.

Mimi, I left DW alone a few times in the very early stages of this journey. Even though DW was still cooking at that point, I would try to have meals prep so she just needed to microwave them. I had people checking in on her and everything went OK. The one issue I do remember was that we had recently purchased a new fancy coffee maker with multiple brewing option. I was always up first so I always made the coffee and when I went away she could not figure out how to work the new coffee maker. So if there is anything new in the house or things that you typically do could be challenging for him. Good luck.

Bluebird

The nurse practitioner at my husband’s neurologist tested my husband to make sure he was ok to be left alone while I went to visit my daughter out of state. She checked things like can he dial a phone, was his walk steady and several other things. He’s still early stages. I only left him for 2 days. She said someone needed to come to the house once a day to check on him, set up meals for him and remind him to take his medication. My other daughter who lives locally stopped by to visit each day and brought him lunch and dinner in bags with his name and marked lunch or dinner. If the food is just in the refrigerator but not in marked bags he doesn’t eat it but just eats sweets. When in marked bags he eats them.

Make sure someone comes into the house to check on him. Don’t have them just call him. He’ll tell them he’s fine even if he’s not. By visiting they can make sure he’s actually ok and by bringing the bags of food they can check and make sure he’’s eaten the food and isn’t just eating sweets.

I also had a card with everyone’s phone numbers that I left on the kitchen counter. Even though the numbers are in his phone I worried he might get frazzled and have trouble finding the number in his phone.

My husband did fine and actually enjoyed himself because he was getting visitors just for him.

harshedbuzz

I have 2 thoughts on this

My advice is to trust your gut. If you feel anxious about this, maybe it's not such a good idea.

My mom left dad alone to attend her sister's funeral. I had offered to stay with him, but she wanted me to drive her. Mom was still in a little denial about dad having dementia-- I had been on her to have him evaluated for almost a decade at this point but he was still fairly independent around ADLs much of the time. She did ask close friends who live across the street to check on him. They both had moms who had dementia and immediately saw there was a problem. The wife came by each morning with coffee and breakfast and then they tried to get him to come to their place for dinner with a plan to keep him there which they weren't able to make happen. The night before Mom got home, he wouldn't answer the door for them. He'd had a psychotic episode and trashed the house. I think he may have seen "people" in the window reflections and portraits on the wall. The pictures were all smashed on the floor and there was glass ad blood everywhere. He kept talking about the man he had killed. Ugh. We ended up taking him to the ER and having him admitted.

The other advice is similar to what @Bluebird suggested.

Once dad was diagnosed and I moved them closer to me, mom and I often clashed on her still being a little in denial about his ability to function. IMO, she left him home alone rather longer than I felt was appropriate. She was loath to bring aides in because of the cost and the anger it would trigger. I helped where I could-- driving him to appointments to give her a break, staying with him when I could so she could get out but it wasn't enough. One day she asked me to stay at the house because she was having a new HVAC system installed and didn't trust dad to not pull some nonsense-- I was there to answer any questions they had and prevent them from doing something dad wanted instead. During the install, a smoke detector went off because of some welding they did. They called down to tell us this. The alarm went on for about 30 seconds before dad asked me what the noise was. I explain it. Almost a minute after it started, he stood up and toddled off toward the bedroom to find my mom. At no point did he attempt to call 911 or ask me to. He didn't recall that mom wasn't there. At that point, I insisted he not be left alone anymore.

When mom and I tussled over these kind of safety issues, I used to refer to the Tam Cummings Stages chart that includes developmental ages/stages. While I don't like the concept of infantilizing those with dementia or ID, it is a useful gut-check around safety. A PWD in Stage4/middle stage functions somewhere between 12 and 18. I wouldn't leave a child with that skillset overnight.

Tam-Cummings-LLC-Handouts.pdf (tala.org)

I'm sorry to live up to my screen name. I hope if you make the visit, it's OK at home. Is there any chance your son could stay overnight if your DH is still OK at home for several hours at a time?

HB

mrahope

FWIW, I took a long-planned trip last summer and was able to have my DS come and stay with my DH. Even though DS was working from my home via computer most of the days that week, he was able to keep tabs on DH's activities. It was a total boost for me and gave me the energy to go ahead with our planned move later in the summer. Also, as it happened, we had a water leak during that time. DS was able to call the plumber(s) and I'm not confident DH could have done it.

I would say if you have a "gig" (I'm thinking to earn needed funds) you may need to seek a more permanent or regular solution.

YMMV

Ed1937

@Mimi50 "I really get very anxious about leaving him. " I think you should ask yourself why you feel that way. Your number one goal should be safety. If you really think he's okay to stay at home, have a good time. If not, please make sure you have all bases covered for him.

M1

As HB and Ed have already alluded, the fact that you are feeling anxious about it probably indicates that it's close to time not to do it any more without some more extensive supervision. You don't want to wait too long on this and have it be a crisis that occurs while he's alone that tells you a change is needed. Would he know to call 911 in an emergency? Could he call 911 when it is not needed? Either one would be a problem.

jfkoc

You say that both you and your husband anxious about your leaving.

That being the case I offer 3 suggestions; (1) do not accept any more jobs away from home, (2) have your son install some nanny cams for this time away and (3) make frequent checking in calls to your husband.

Bluebird

How did it go this weekend?