"Does anyone know where Frank is?" my cousin Angelo calls and asks.
Matt, Angelo and I are taking turns looking in on Frank. Angelo goes over in the morning and puts dinner in the crockpot. Matt and I take turns in the evening making sure he takes his meds and he's safe. Since Angelo's job as a realtor is pretty flexible, we paid him to look in on Frank and sort of be a companion. I couldn't ask my children or any older relatives because honestly, I wasn't sure they would be safe considering he was having hallucinations and not telling us about them. At least we're all Frank's age and he knows us well. The plan is that Angelo would hang out with Frank, cook, watch tv, go out sometimes; that lasted about a day and a half. Frank would give off this uncomfortable vibe like he wanted Angelo to leave. He would stand up and sit down over and over or he would begin pacing. Then he would stand in the middle of the room and stare at him strangely. There was no reading his eyes, they were blank, so you couldn't tell what his intentions were. Angelo said he couldn't stay with Frank all day, it was too uncomfortable, but he would go in the morning and make sure he took his meds and maybe check in later if he was around.
It's not like I hadn't tried more conventional means of care for him. I called every nursing home I could think of in our area. I thought I had him in at the nursing home my grandmother went to before she passed away. Everyone in town knew my grandmother and everyone loved her. Although she had been gone eight years, they still remembered her when I called and dropped her name. "Oh yes, we loved your grandmother. And how is your family?" the director asked. "We are all doing well, thank you. I remember how much Nanna loved living at Summer House." I gushed.
"Oh that's wonderful, well if there's ever anything we can do . . . " She thought I was through.
I continued, "By the way, my husband's brother is in need of care. He's 50 years old and he's just been diagnosed with Frontotemporal Dementia, and . . ."
"Oh, no we can't take him. I know this diagnosis. It's very bad, these people are unpredictable and can have dangerous outbursts." the director explained.
"He's not dangerous at all. He just sits, he's never had any outbursts." I interrupted hopefully.
"Our average age is 83 here. That's a big difference from fifty. He just doesn't fit in. I'm sorry." She was dismissing me and I could tell there was no convincing her to take Frank. I called Bayada Nurses, a visiting nurse agency. They had a meeting and decided that Frank's diagnosis was unpredictable and dangerous and the nurses could not safely walk into Frank's home. I called a senior daycare center, same answer. Most nursing homes have answering machines and I suppose they only return calls that appeal to them and only one of the other homes I called returned the call, but it was a private nursing home that did not accept Medicare and it would cost $8,000 per month. Even if we got some alimony from Kat, it was still way too expensive. The sad truth is that no one wants to take care of a fifty year old with dementia.
Angelo called around 5:00 only four days after Frank got home from the hospital; we had lost him already. "Are you sure he's not there somewhere? Did you drive around the neighborhood?" I asked.
We took Frank's cars away. While he was in the hospital we sold one of his cars and we hid the other one at Matt's office until we had a buyer for that one too. It was February and extremely cold. I was worried we would find him frozen on the turnpike somewhere. I ran out of the house and went driving to all Frank's favorite places, Giant grocery store food court, Whole Foods food court, Home Depot, Wendy's, Boston Market. I even showed his picture to the workers at Home Depot hoping they had seen him. No, no one had. I called the police next and reported a man with dementia missing. The police operator was very nice and helpful. She took my name and phone number and then asked me if Frank was a veteran. I said that he was National Guard. She told me that the veteran's groups in our area would mobilize to help look for him if needed. Next, I went back home thinking he might show up at our house. When Matt came home we went out together and drove around the streets between his house and our house. We finally found him around 9:00 that evening, right down the street from our house, just walking down the sidewalk. Matt pulled over next to him and he barely looked at us. I called his name and he stopped walking and just stood there. I got out of the car and opened the back door and said, "Get in Frank, you must be freezing." He got in the back seat without a word. I said, "Frank are you cold?" and he answered "yeah". That was pretty much it for conversation. We drove him back to his house, gave him his meds, and waited until he was in bed.
"He was looking for his cars" Matt said. "I know him; he thinks I have them."
"Matt, we can't keep this up" I complained.
I had no idea what was in store for us next though.
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