My Dad My Dog
By: Rebecca Warner / Narrated By: Julie John
Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
Are we the only ones who didn’t have the Fairy Tale Alzheimer’s experience? … jeez…
Oh jeez. I’ve seen the reviews about what a glorious little book this is, how touching, etc etc et freaking c. And I gotta tell ya, I’m ready for a book that shows what a godawful experience the Alzheimer’s/Dementia Journey actually is.
Here in My Dad My Dog, we’re treated to what appears to be a fictionalized memoir of Rebecca Warner’s caregiving experiences as told by main character Rachel when funds are running out, and Rachel and her husband take her dad Joe out of his assisted living home to bring back to their own home. First, $3,000 a month is nowhere near what a good one charges, esPECially if we’re being told his community does NOT smell like urine and that the direct care staff acts as tho’ they’re paid more than a sub-par wage considering the back breaking work they do. Rachel opens this story with the care home sending her dad off with a Good-Bye Party and all the staff and all the residents are quaint, charming, sooooo very caring.
And then it’s back to Rachel’s house where there’s a lovely apartment for Joe to live in. Joe not only is in a latter stage of Alzheimer’s but also has Parkinson’s and diabetes, but danged if the fellow just ain’t doing great, is all charming and sweet. Nope, he doesn’t like their dog, Nick, cuz he’d spent yeeeears as a mailman, and dogs just are NOT his favorite creatures. So there’s not much interaction between Dad and Dog in a huuuuge part of this book, thus belying the title of the book. Rachel and husband David keep the two separated and Nick starts getting depressed as he’s not receiving the care and attention that he needs in his own declining years.
Most of this book is NOT of Dad and Dog but of Rachel getting burned out and squawking about it. Uhm, welcome to the club? Fortunately, they have some means still available to them, and fortunately husband David is UBER supportive and willing to take a day off from being the breadwinner keeping the family afloat so that Rachel can have a day to herself, getting coffee, trying on outfits, meeting with pals for dinner.
I get it, kinda sorta. Keeping a parent in care is HARD work, and EXPENSIVE as all get out. One does what one can, and basically it’s exhausting and ya need to take care of yourself before you’re able to dust yourself off and go back into the fight.
But good gosh, her dad was a cherub. And tho’ in the latter stages, and despite the trifecta of afflictions, he’s really pretty sharp, and good GOD is he mellow.
This? I’m getting tired of. My husband and I, who saw what one care facility was like, with aaaaallll residents urinating and defecating on themselves, with aaaaallll residents screaming and biting, with aaaaaallll residents having trouble eating, all in those latter stages? Yup, only one care facility, but an EXPENSIVE one, a better one. After being charmed by The Long Hello, I’m now aggravated by this addition to the: Mom and Dad are charming until they lose their verbal abilities at the very end and slip off into that Good Night oh so gently.
You want a sweet look at a parent who can get to the toilet with some physical assistance? Here you go. A Dad who remembers very well until memory starts to fade out, unlike the huge gaping cheese holes of others with forms of dementia where they forget they have children? Here you go. A daughter who shrieks (And thanks very much to narrator Julie John for shattering m’ eardrums with the shrill squawking) that she needs to go out for a Latte, so dang it, David: Step up to the plate, no matter that you’re keeping several balls in the air also? Here you go.
But you want a Dad and a Dog? Waaaaaait until the last hour or so when Joe starts realizing that poor ailing Nick is a lovebug, and he’s rather ancient himself, in DIRE need of TLC. So I’ve complained about the near entirety of the book (And have added the narration flaws, i.e. it’s annoying with Ms. John sounding like she’s pinching her nostrils to give various characters nasal whines), now I’ll get to the end… which was soooo sweet, shall I? The book deserves that much.
The end is of the two, Joe and Nick, in their final days, and we see that Joe has recognized Nick as a kindred soul, on his way out, deserving affection and compassion. The two start their twinning journey to Beyond, and THAT danged near killed me! Two elder statesmen of their own species whose bodies are failing them and who come together to express affection for each other, and grief when all is said and done. Yikes, tear or two there, yup. That ending was what made the book, exasperating as it was, worth it.
Still, gotta say I’m soooo over the romanticized: Oh, their memories just fade, they become a trifle childlike, and then there are sweet good-byes. Thank GOD Rachel squawked about needing that Latte on her own, cuz THAT’S probably the only normal thing in this book of pie in the sky latter stages.
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