Journal Day Two January 19, 2012

Rough morning today. Woke up really early. Couldn't sleep. Thinking of my dad and the conversation I had with his doctor yesterday. I spend the morning online doing research. Reading other blogs that chronicle family journeys with their loved ones who have FTD. The future is so scary. I read that people with FTD become incontinent, develop compulsions, refuse to shower, neglect heigene, lose speech and so on. We haven't seen any of that with my dad yet. We have seen speech loss and apathy, confusion with words and names, some memory loss. I'm grateful but so anxious over the future. A small part of me also questions the diagnosis. What if the doctor is wrong? Maybe my dad has a different kind of dementia or something else. My dad is extremely wary of doctors. It's a struggle to get him to go for visits. I want to take him for a second opinion but he won't go so for now we are stuck with our current doc (who, by the way, is highly respected and well regarded in our area). But I feel he just doesn't give a crap. It seems as though he's given up.... Your dad will eventually become an alien to you, deal with it. What? How?..cried for a bit. Seems pretty much daily occurrence for me lately. Spoke to my mom. She said that she felt he was about the same. Did say that at the doctor's visit he didn't know what year it was and was only able to name five out of six grandchildren. I wanted to take the kids for a visit after school. He is so happy, lights up when he sees them but N and S were a bit congested when I picked them up so we decided not to go. It's A's birthday on Saturday. My heart is not into any sort of big celebration so on Sunday both sets of grandparents will come over for lunch. I'll see how my dad interacts with the rest of the family. He used to be the life of the party. Singing, joking, dancing. Not so much anymore. I feel such a loss. My heart breaks when I look at him. I have to keep the tears in. His eyes still have a twinkle. I know the real him is in there. He's quieter. Doesn't really start conversations but does talk when engaged. We'll see how it goes. Hope for the best. Oh, and my mom has been having headaches and pain in her eye. Scary because several years ago she suffered from a subdural hematoma and had brain surgery. Tomorrow she goes for MRI. Fingers crossed. Take good care, S