The human mind is infinitely creative. The infinitely creative human mind of a person with Alzheimer's is infinitely stressful for those around him. It's some kind of universal law - you can't argue with math.
Take Bernard, my father.
It's 2:30 in the morning. He is shirtless. He is standing in front of the sink in the kitchen. He turns the water on, watching it flow for a couple of seconds. He bats the water with his hand, like a cat batting a piece of string that sparks an ancestral memory of hunting in the jungle. He turns the water off (like the jungle cat that didn't catch its prey). He looks at the sink for a couple of seconds. Then, he repeats the process (like a jungle cat that hasn't learned its lesson).
After watching him go through this two or three times, it occurs to me that the water might be too hot for him to wash his hands with. So, I turn the handle towards cold. Sure enough, the next time he runs the water, my father finds it to his liking and rubs his hands under it for a couple of seconds. Then, he turns the tap off and stares at the sink, unsure what to do next.
I reach under the sink, pull out a towel and hand it to him. How Victorian! I half expect a tip for my service, or at least the doffing of a top hat in recognition.
Ordinarily, one could expect that to be the end of it. In my dad's case, nyuh uh. After handing the towel back to me, he stares at the sink for a couple of seconds, then begins running his thumbs over his other fingers, not unlike a crab flexing its pincers. Then, he washes his hands again.
And again.
And again.
Either my father has become a germophobe, or he immediately forgets that he has already washed his hands, or he doesn't like the feel of partially dry hands and thinks that washing them will rid him of it; Alzheimer's offers many creative possibilities for the otherwise unoccupied mind.
I decide the best course of action is to draw him away from the sink. So, I tell him, "Come with me," something I have been doing a lot lately. Gisela, never one to miss a classic movie reference, adds, "...if you want to live." Something she's been saying a lot lately. I just want to get him the four steps from the sink to the chair by the table; it's not exactly Sarah Connor's journey, but every action is epic to somebody in the advanced stages of dementia.
Gisela dealt with my dad's water obsession with her usual good cheer, surprising considering what he had put her through the early morning before.
This summer, Gisela became interested in growing mushrooms. A little obsessed, maybe. Okay, a lot obsessed. But in a good way. She was using a steamer to sterilize jars of water that she would use in the first stage of growing her mushrooms. At three in the morning, because that had to be a safe time to sterilize jars of water to grow mushrooms, right?
Web Goddess plans, man laughs.
My dad sat at the kitchen table, fascinated with the cords from the steamer and the toaster oven that were plugged into adjacent sockets. Occasionally, he reached out to touch one of them. Gisela, concerned that he might accidentally pull out the cord for the steamer, or even intentionally pull out the cord for the steamer, causing her to have to start the process all over again, with increasing urgency, shouted, "No!" at him. She swatted his hand away from the cords more than once. I tried to distract him by taking out the plug for the toaster oven, telling him he could do whatever he wanted with it; I have no idea if he understood what I told him, because his fascination for the other plug did not abate.
You're probably wondering what the big whup is. There is a common misconception that drama requires huge stakes: if you're not saving the entire world from evil robots, your struggle is not consequential enough to be of interest. In fact, dramatic tension arises when obstacles are put in the way of somebody who wants to accomplish something. What the person wants to accomplish is relatively unimportant; the real issue is how badly they want it.
Gisella wanted those jars of water sterilized really, really, really, really, really badly. The five reallys rule should tell you how tense the situation became as the steamer's clock wound down towards zero, and the sense of relief everybody in the neighbourhood had when time finally ran out.
Taking the jars out of the steamer created a different problem: how to keep curious Bernard from trying to open one and burning himself. We had done our best to dad-proof the house ever since the indoor waterfall incident; if this is what it's like to be the parent of a toddler, I'm glad I never had children, although dealing with my father might be the universe's way of laughing at my presumption in this area. Gisela put the jars in the oven to cool down.
Satisfied that the situation had been resolved, Gisela left the kitchen. I watched my father for a couple of minutes, then decided that it would be best if I took him to his room for the evening. "Come with me..." I suggested, offering my hand. "...if you want to live," a muffled voice said from a distant part of the house.
Sometimes, you have to laugh.