For eleven years I begged my obstinate elderly father to allow a caregiver to help him with my ailing mother, but after 55 years of loving her, he adamantly insisted on taking care of her himself. Every caregiver I hired to help him sighed in exasperation, "Jacqueline, I just can't work with your father--his temper is impossible to handle. I don't think you'll be able to get him to accept help until he's on his knees himself."

My father had always been 90 percent wonderful, but boy-oh-boy that raging temper was a doozy. He’d never turned his temper on me before, but then again--I'd never gone against his wishes either. When my mother nearly died from his inability to care for her, I had to step in and risk his wrath to save her life--having no idea that in the process it would nearly cost me my own.

Early Signs of Dementia?

I spent three months nursing my mother back to relative "health," while my father, who was telling me he loved me one minute would get furious about some trivial little thing, call me nasty names and throw me out of the house the next. I was stunned to see him get so upset over the most ridiculous things, even running the washing machine could cause a tizzy, and there was no way to reason with him. It was so heart wrenching to have my once-adoring father turn against me.

I immediately took him to his doctor and was astonished that he could act completely normal when he needed to. I couldn't believe it when the doctor looked at me as if I was the crazy one. She didn’t even take me seriously when I reported that my father had nearly electrocuted my mother and that he’d left the gas stove on and nearly burned the house down. Much later I found out that he’d instructed her not to listen to anything I said because, “all I wanted was his money.” (Boy do I wish he had some!)

Then things got serious. My father had never laid a hand on me my whole life, but one day nearly choked me to death for adding HBO to his cable package, even though he had eagerly consented to it a few days before. Terrified, I called the police, who took him to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. After a couple days of tests and observation, I just couldn’t believe it when they released him saying they couldn't find anything wrong with him. Similar horrifying incidents occurred four times.

Caregiving Catch 22

I couldn't leave my mother alone with my father, because she'd surely die from his inability to care for her. I couldn't get the doctors to believe me, because he was always so sane in front of them. I couldn't get medication to calm him, and even when I did he refused to take it, threw it in my face or flushed it down the toilet. I couldn't get him to accept a caregiver, and even when I did, no one would put up with him for very long. I couldn't place my mother in a nursing home--he'd just take her out. I couldn't put him in a home--he didn't qualify. They both refused any mention of assisted living and legally I couldn't force them. I became trapped at my parents' home for nearly a year trying to solve the endless crisis, crying rivers daily--and infuriated with an unsympathetic medical system that wasn't helping me appropriately.