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!! VENT ALERT !!
I’m not talking about dementia. Just a loss of, what, manners? Discretion? Consideration?
My 86 year old father doesn’t ask me how I am...he tells me whether or not he’s pooped yet...and in detail. How much, how long it took, consistency, Jezuspleazuz. Drives me crazy! He’s done this for YEARS. I don’t know if it’s become more prevalent, or if it’s just getting to me more lately.
NOW he’s started to tell me about his “scabbed up pecker” (post-catheterization in hospital) and I just DO NOT WANT TO KNOW! I have told him for years that I don’t want to know about his butt or his bowels...deaf ears.
He lives in a senior facility. He has regular doctor’s visits & home nurses 2x a week. So he certainly has an ear (or an audience) for his butt/poop/penis concerns.
WTF?!?
Some things a daughter DOES NOT WANT TO KNOW.
It may literally be driving me crazy. It definitely keeps me from calling or visiting sometimes, I just don’t want to hear it, but it’s inevitable.
I just realized recently that my grandfather did the same thing.
What the HELL?!?
Ugh...

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You must not have ever had a teenage boy. I've had two of them. My dad got into that talk at the end of his life (fortunately, only for about a week for my ears), and my husband has always had that obsession, too. I think it's wired into their DNA from early on. :-D
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Well my FIL once told me, in front of my DDs friends that we needed to replace the toilets at the river house because his "balls hit the water when he sat down". I was laughing so hard.. told him that was his sons problem...
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Beatty avatar
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Beatty Mar 2021
LOL 🤣🤣🤣
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I think we are sisters. It is amazing how they think these topics are good conversations to have in the middle of a restaurant. My mom died of cancer in 2003 and for the next 10 years, my father was obsessed that he might have cancer. Within a minute of talking to him, he had to bring up the subject of cancer. I used to time him. Then his new obsession was bowel movements. I so missed the cancer talks! He would tell me in graphic detail about them. Or he would announce at the Thanksgiving Dinner table that he went! Many times I yelled "Why are you telling me this???!!!" and he kept saying "I thought you'd want to know". No I don't! My feeling is, at this stage this is the only NEW thing in their life. They have nothing else to talk about. They are no longer interested in others, just themselves and this is the only thing new.
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jacobsonbob avatar
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jacobsonbob Mar 2021
A few years ago I saw of list of things that are different between young and old people, and one of them was as follows:

Young: Hoping for a BMW
Old: Hoping for a BM
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Next time he starts in on his BM talk, tell him in great detail about going to the gynecologist . 😳
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There's more to dementia than memory loss...

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health-advisor/theres-more-to-dementia-than-memory-loss-know-the-signs/article18884152/
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Perhaps he's raising these issues b/c they affect him so intimately, as well as his sense of bodily control and security?   A lot can change when someone has to accept bodily changes that can no longer be controlled.  The sense of loss and vulnerability can be hard to comprehend, let alone accept.
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: ( My brother was the opposite. He was dying in hospital and he was concerned if I was in the room when the nurse came to change him. Because of covid, if I left the room I'd have to leave the hospital for the day. So I'd go into the bathroom and wait out the changing or bathing or putting in or taking out of the catheter, whatever. Even if I promised to not look, to look out the window with my back to him. My husband, though, tells me EVERYTHING and wants me to see EVERYTHING going on with his bodily functions. Somewhere in the middle of these two attitudes would seem reasonable to me.
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Unfortunately, it could be that this is the only thing discussed with him by the caregivers that you mentioned. It might be wise to make a list of topics that he use to like to discuss. Yes, this might help so you don't stop visiting which probably would bring on a level of guilt that you also would not like as well.
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Sometimes small strokes, TIAs, can effect people's behavior. My grandmother became a different, much friendlier, person after having a few.
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jacobsonbob avatar
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jacobsonbob Mar 2021
I wonder often these events IMPROVE a person's personality like this!
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Welcome to it. When I was a kid my great aunts and uncles would be sitting in a room together and all they would do is talk about bodily functions. On year at the Thanksgiving Table my grandmother ( in her 70's) told the whole table "my rectum is messed up". My mom is 87 and mentions her bodily functions endlessly. I have never figured it out. Just smile and nod, just smile and nod.
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