What a difference a month makes
Just under a month ago, I posted a very depressing tale about my father's mental state, including the fact that he would never be coming home again.
Tonight, he's at home with my mom.
And ok, so he has to go back to the hospital tomorrow, but if this visit goes well (and it sounded good when I spoke to them both on the phone earlier this evening), then he might be going home permanently as early as next week.
What changed?
Well, the basic diagnosis is still the same: he does have frontal lobe dementia. It's the aggression that has disappeared.
A couple of weeks ago, he was transferred from the psych ward here in the city back to the local hospital in my hometown. So now he's around people he knows; his friends have been visiting; he's under the care of a fantastic nurse-practitioner instead of the not-so-fantastic psychiatrist. With all that, somewhere along the line, he decided to start cooperating with the assessments and taking his drugs (which include an anti-psychotic).
One of the things that seems to be key is that the nurse-practitioner has been absolutely blunt, even harsh, in her conversations with him - explaining his diagnosis and prognosis, explaining what limitations he was likely to have. I think he felt like people were hiding things from him before and so he was suspicious and fought everything. We were letting the psychiatrist determine what information he was given and when because we assumed she knew best. Yeah, not so much.
So. The world is a much happier place and I am very much relieved.
Thanks to everyone who sent me positive thoughts. It appears that they worked. Excellent job, everyone!
Tonight, he's at home with my mom.
And ok, so he has to go back to the hospital tomorrow, but if this visit goes well (and it sounded good when I spoke to them both on the phone earlier this evening), then he might be going home permanently as early as next week.
What changed?
Well, the basic diagnosis is still the same: he does have frontal lobe dementia. It's the aggression that has disappeared.
A couple of weeks ago, he was transferred from the psych ward here in the city back to the local hospital in my hometown. So now he's around people he knows; his friends have been visiting; he's under the care of a fantastic nurse-practitioner instead of the not-so-fantastic psychiatrist. With all that, somewhere along the line, he decided to start cooperating with the assessments and taking his drugs (which include an anti-psychotic).
One of the things that seems to be key is that the nurse-practitioner has been absolutely blunt, even harsh, in her conversations with him - explaining his diagnosis and prognosis, explaining what limitations he was likely to have. I think he felt like people were hiding things from him before and so he was suspicious and fought everything. We were letting the psychiatrist determine what information he was given and when because we assumed she knew best. Yeah, not so much.
So. The world is a much happier place and I am very much relieved.
Thanks to everyone who sent me positive thoughts. It appears that they worked. Excellent job, everyone!