seriously, honor thy father already

Here at the optometrist's office that I work in, we see a wide variety of people. Seeing as how old people often need glasses, it's not unusual to have someone with dementia be brought in for an eye exam. It is unusual when the caretaker gives us all the gory details of the patient's medical history and mental future and then patronizes the patient.

We had this woman come in with her mother and father. The father has Alzheimer's and cancer, but is a very sweet and agreeable man. The daughter, who's in charge of the whole outing, corners me while I try and find his file and tells me all the details of his recent hospitalization, etc. I don't really need to know any of that, since this is the optometrist, but I am willing to listen. I take them back to the exam room and the father and daughter go in. The mother was standing in the hallway and I told her she could go in too if she wanted. "What does it matter?! He has Alzheimer's!" was her reply. I just kind of stood there shocked for a minute and then told her where the magazines where. I didn't finish waiting on them that day because I left or went to lunch, but apparently the mother told one of my co-workers to "hurry the fuck up" when they were finishing the sale.

So yesterday they came back, and of course the glasses weren't ready. The daughter again mentioned that she was a VERY BUSY WOMAN and that is it VERY HARD to take care of her parents, even though she wasn't mad about the glasses. The daughter was also all riled up because my co-worker hadn't offered them the buy one get one free deal. I find it's pretty hard to offer sales to people when they are telling you to "hurry the fuck up." The free pair is based on single vision with the basic lens, and he needs an invisible bifocal with extra thin lenses, so they would've had to pay $139 to get anything he can actually use. They don't want to pay extra though so these glasses are going to be horrible. While they're waiting, the daughter goes and buys coffee for them all and keeps saying "DAD, THIS COFFEE IS VERY HOT! BE VERY CAREFUL!" She went off to shop and he sat there and drank the coffee with no problem while his wife bitched at him about how he liked cigars more than her.

Anyway, the man is very sweet and doesn't deserve to be treated like a child by his family. He obviously knows who they are and what's going on and doesn't need to be constantly reminded of all his troubles. He's still allowed to smoke cigars, so obviously he isn't mentally incapacitated. I just hate to see people treat their parents badly. I hate teenagers that say mean things to their parents (even though I used to be one) and I hate older people that resent having to take care of the people that have given them everything. I know it must be remarkably hard to be a caretaker for someone with Alzheimer's, but I have seen it done in a way that lends some dignity to the person. My best friend in elementary school's mother took care of her mother with advanced Alzheimer's, her mentally retarded sister, and her own five children for years while she taught elementary school and I never heard her complain.

I'm incredibly naive about being a caretaker, but no matter how bad things get, how can you treat one of your parents with anything less than love and respect?