Impaired Judgment

One of the characteristics of FTD is it impairs your judgment.  That doesn’t sound so bad when you consider other diseases and their physical symptoms, right?  That is, until you see firsthand the level that judgment is actually impaired.  Here are some examples…

Dad either gave away, allowed others to take advantage of, or spent himself - hundreds of thousands of dollars in about 5 years’ time.  His investment accounts, his retirement, his life insurance policies…all gone.  On top of this, he racked up thousands and thousands of dollars in credit card debt.  Pre-FTD: This is a man who was brilliant when it came to running his business, managing his finances and investing.  He worked with a financial planner, but often went against his advice, usually benefiting from his own decisions.  This is also a man who obsessed about having enough money to retire and analyzed his accounts daily.

When I started going through the piles of mail and bills, I found all the junk mail he received.  I discovered that he signed up for every club out there - movie club, book club, dvd club, magazine subscription, you name it.  And they were for things he wouldn't even be interested in.  Disney movie clubs, Harlequin romance novel book clubs...the more he signed up for, the more junk mail he received (and of course signed up for). Crazy psychic organizations asking for donations, letters that said to mail in $200 to claim your million dollar prize, money sent in to have some little crappy trinket gift sent to you... every piece of mail that came asking for money, he sent in with a check.  

Dad’s hygiene and the cleanliness of his house took a turn for the worst this past year.  A hoarding nightmare...piles of mail and unpaid bills on every single surface of every single room.  Years’ worth, covered in dust.  He would note on the envelope what was inside, the amount of the bill and when it was due.  But that was the extent of it.  He gave up trying to pay them.  And I don’t think it was because he didn’t have the money anymore.  I think he just didn’t know what to do with them.  The piles of garbage, empty containers, rotten food, piles of dishes that needed to be chiseled off with a blowtorch to clean them…I’ve never seen anything like it.  Pre-FTD:  Well, I’ve already described his financial and business sense.  And as for the cleanliness & hygiene, no one in their right mind would find the state of his house or his personal hygiene acceptable.

Once we started taking dad to doctors to try to get a diagnosis, we were nervous about how he would react to going to see a doctor.  We ended up going to social workers, psychologists, neuro-psychiatrists, general practitioners, having cognitive tests, blood work drawn, MRI’s, and the list goes on.  The cognitive tests alone took 6 hours.  Never once did he question why he was there and what they were doing.  When we would sit face to face with the doctor and explain in front of my dad what was going on, how he was being taken advantage of, how filthy his home was, and how bizarre his behavior was, never once did he speak up or get upset.  And after we’d leave the office, he’d say things like “well, I think that went well.”  All I can say for pre-FTD is that my dad would never go to the doctor for any reason.  Never.  Not to mention, I'd be terrified of his reaction if we had said the things we did in front of him like that.

This past fall one of his “friends” set up an arrangement to have one of her daughter’s friends move into his spare bedroom.  Rent-free, to help her get on her feet.  She was maybe 20 years old, tops.  And a drug addict.  She often had her girlfriend stay there too.  Not only did they not pay to stay there, we found checks that my dad wrote to them.  The place never got any cleaner either.  They took the mattress off his bed and used it as their own in their room.  He didn’t appear to think that there was anything unusually bizarre or completely absurd about this situation, as he would have pre-FTD. 

As the weather got colder this winter we were getting more calls from neighbors and the police that my dad was found roaming the streets around his neighborhood looking for cigarettes, and not dressed for the weather.  One night I got a call from a neighbor saying that another neighbor found him outside on the corner waiting for hours in the dark in subzero temps.  He was dressed in only a hoodie and sweatpants.  No hat, no gloves.  When I asked him what he was doing outside he said that he asked some guy for a cigarette and the guy told him he didn’t have any, but would be right back.  Who knows how long he would have waited had that neighbor not seen him.

His obsessions continued and he started searching parked cars looking for spare change and cigarettes.  This is what got him arrested eventually.  He stayed in jail for 5 days and when he was released his response was “it wasn’t so bad, really.  I got to watch TV and have hot meals.  It wasn’t bad at all.” 

One day we were at his house checking on him and he pointed to the contents on his counter as if he had great news for us…“hey, look at this” he said…”one day when I was out walking, I got real lucky and found this butt of a cigar and this $1 bill.  I took them home and put them in the oven to dry them out.  It worked ok, but the cigar wouldn’t light so well after.”  We tried to hide our horrified expressions and just smiled and nodded like this was your regular everyday good news.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but enough said.  I sometimes feel a physical illness would be easier to handle.  It is just so hard seeing him like this.  This is not him.  Not even close.  It’s heartbreaking when I think about what his old self would do if he saw the way that he is now.