When Are You Going To Take The Car Away From Dad
I had a friend who’s father in law had Alzheimer’s disease. He lived in a small town in Iowa. One day he took the car into town to get the oil changed. He never made it to the station. The highway patrol picked him up going down the interstate highway at 60 miles an hour – the wrong way and on the opposite side of the median.
How does this happen? He not only endangered himself, but he also endangered a lot of drivers coming the other way who were not doing anything wrong, just being innocent bystanders in an accident waiting to happen. It happens because the adult children in the family are afraid to make the decision to take the car away from Mom and Dad when it has finally become unsafe for them to be behind the wheel.
We had to take the car away from my Dad. It was one of the saddest things that we have ever done. I remember him coming to visit us later. The car was being driven by my teenage son. He looked at the car and looked back up at me confused. He said “I used to have a car just like this one.” He failed to make the connection that it was actually his old car.
When Dad was moving through the stages of dementia, it was very predictable. We had gone to listen to a nurse talk about dementia and what to expect. I could not believe how closely he was following the stages that she laid out for us. It is very difficult to see your parents age in reverse and become like children again.
There are some hard decisions to be made when this starts to happen. Be prepared to talk to your brothers and sisters about it. Plan ahead if you can, while Mom and Dad are still coherent and can help you make some of the decisions about what they would like to have happen. This is the way to provide some dignity to end of life care. Visit preparingtodie.com for some more ideas.
