Candida Infection on His Hand

Candida rash is what they called it, a type of yeast. After holding his hand closed for so long, not allowing it to be cleaned, no wonder that it's got something growing in there. Today he told me that he has stopped worrying about it. He said he has resigned himself to the way it is. That is just the way his attitude is killing him. This I believe. It doesn't have to be like this, but maybe this is actually the right attitude for a person his age. "Youth can never judge age" our father has told us all our lives. I think that is mostly true, but if we are to learn from our elders, then we must judge them to try to figure out what we want to learn. My siblings and I mostly will say to one another that we really don't want to wind up like Dad. Watching his decline is enough to intimidate anyone who hopes to get old. Well, it's already too late for me to die young, but I sure hope I can avoid this long slide. None of us know what it's like to actually be 30 years older, so it is kind of a hollow statement to say we'd rather be dead quick.

Our clan tends to have big heads. Dad was always proud of his big head. Hats were always too small for him. He took that to be indicative of superior cranial capability. Now that big head seems to be too heavy for him. He sits with his chin practically resting on his breast. I try to get him to look up, but if I am successful it's only for a brief moment. He drops his head back down right away.

He still has a full head of hair. This is another thing he has always taken pride in. Glad to have

hair he always says. I always say that if you do have hair, you need to have clean hair and a good haircut. Before he came to the convalescent home and I had to help his caretaker wash his hair, it was a terrible fight. He had such bad seborrhea, it made him look diseased. He always had a close haircut on the sides and about two inches on top. Now that he gets his hair buzzed off, you can really see the huge cowlick on top of his head. Hair comes up from one side and meets the hair on the top and it stands up in a wave. I trim around his ears and his eyebrows so he looks somewhat groomed. I scratch his head and he loves it. He almost purrs. I rub his neck and back as well as I can while he's in the chair. He always tells me how strong my hands are and how sweet I am and how much he loves me.

His fingernails are dirty, but I wait until I can get him at a good time to do that. Today was not a good time.

I asked about his mouth and he said it was sore, so I had him put his dentures in a cup and I cleaned them. I put oragel on his gums using my finger because his finger is dirty. Also, I'm not sure he does a good job. I tried to get the oragel to stick, but with all the saliva, I'm not sure it did. I cleaned and re-lined his dentures with some felt-like liner. I put them back in his mouth but he couldn't tell me if it felt better or not.

I took him outside for a little while on the patio. It was the first nice and warm day for a while. He listened to old radio programs on my ipod. Now that I think about it, it's a little joke: Old radio programs on an ipod. When I got ready to go home he said he wanted to go to bed because he would be lonely when I left. It breaks my heart.