Frustration & Anger

I think we are probably really at the end of the rope. Or it is just me as daughter-in-law... My husband is like his Dad who has moderate Alzheimer's - he works and I see his Dad more in the house as we are visiting his Dad in his house this summer.

Unfortunately my own father has his health issue. My Dad has some tumor in his kidney and needs to take it out. He is slowly going about it at Stanford in Calif. My 4 sisters are helping my Dad there. I plan to go there to see my Dad in late July or early August.

In the mean time I am in Chicago dealing with my FIL. This adds more pressure and stress for me.

MY father-in-law has this problem thinking he works with his son, my husband!! Ever since my husband's college time, he always thinks they "work together". Now my FIL is at this point that if we remind him or tell him he has 2 sons and he is in his house, then he will automatically thinks his ulmate goal is to work with my husband. The thing is, first of all, they are not even in the same fields although they are both professors. Secondly, his AD deprived him from having this scholar ability to read and write intelligently. I think he has lost this since 2004. Now he even picked up a wrong book and claimed the photo had him in it (which is not in his field and it is not him in the photo.) Then he picked up 2 text books later which are in his field. He wrote single words here and there in the book or papers. Nothing intelligent anymore - just like practicing writing the words or teminology terms by copying. He can still sign so he can copy roughly the single word.

I get angry or frustrated at that. I plan to stop telling him the truth about his life so he can stop bugging us with this nonsense of working. I don't mind him playing work or whatever, just want him to leave my husband alone about work! My husband is diplomatic about it and never can tell his Dad no. He just white-lied about whatever his Dad wants. My FIL told my husband to read this very old textbook about the brain. Well you know, I am interested in the brain study, but it does not mean we work in the same areas! Also he does not accept new knowledge about the brain such as the one mentioned in NOVA on PBS.

The other issue is the home care people. Now we got 4 certified nurse aids as caregivers for 24 hours. (They take turns.) The agency is just as tricky as possible. One loyal caregiver actually shows me this letter in private. They dare wrote "we refused to pay overtime" and not pay them overtime or holidays!! What the hell is this! It is not proper! They put it on us! We really need to send my FIL to a nursing home for this! It is like we deal with this agency by going to the far end just for my FIL. My husband is not very decisive and he is not really willing to send his Dad away...

We will plan to send my FIL to a home next year. In the mean time it is expensive....

I am getting more angry and this old house also problems (too old and we are fixing the roof too.) I put it on my husband sometimes. He is the one that is far away mentally from all of these and I am the one that deals with it. I am cancer survivor...