From Independence to Dependence — The Cycle of Life

My father — the most fearless and independent person I have known — and can proudly claim to have some of his no nonsense genes — is now dependent for a few things. It is very painful to see that and experience this stage where medicines have to be hidden from him, from the one who has been prescribing medicines to all of us in the family, and to many outside.

It pains him too, and he laments that age old brings such situations. Every day there is one episode that runs at least for 10–15 mins, where similar scripts are played.

It started a few days after his return from the hospital, and a bit of disorientation had set in already, but he could recollect where his medicines were and went for them. I took immediate action and removed all the medicines from the closet and kept in a bag and put it elsewhere. What followed was 15/20 mins of his outburst, refusing to eat, recollecting old, supressed anger against me however it all settled down in a bit and in sometime he seemed to back to his current disoriented state.

Similar episodes happen daily, one day he has a headache, one day he seems to have issues hearing, one day issues with eyesight, one day tantrums refusing to eat; and everyday he wanting to take his own medicines, enquiring why we don’t have medicines at home, what would we do should there be an emergency and eventually writing his own list ang giving us the same to be bought and kept at home.

That he believes that there are no medicines at home is something I am both happy and sad about. Happy because he won’t take his own medicines(as advised by the doctor we are seeing), sad because it shows the cognitive issues are still there.

Gradually, it seems like acceptance is coming through — from him as well as from us:

• He, accepting that he will not be able to take his medicines because his daughter has apparently become the boss. So now his tactics have changed to more emotional ones like to remind us about the problems he has, to remind us that the emergency we might have to deal with, or the best one is telling us to remember to not forget to give him medicines.
• We, learning to not react, not explain, not argue but listen to those 15–20 mins quietly, to let those minutes pass.

And while his healing continues, I hope his cognitive state gets better, his physical state gets stable for his age and that he gets back to his pre-hospitalisation routine. The change will be gradual, and too little to notice but I hope there is.

After all, age is just a number!