Accidental Personality change
My memories of my dad before I was10 are quite good. He wasn't the most demonstrative of parents but he was funny, a big Goons & Python fan he used to say "he fallen in da water" in a bluebottle voice when someone fell in water on the telly and do other silly voices all the time. He played hockey for a local team so we used to play hockey in the garden and go to his matches. I remember holidays going to see steam trains all warm nice memories, all a bit hazy as childhood memories of a 40 year old are but good memories.

He cycled to work and on his journey to work he had to negotiate a huge and very busy roundabout (long since converted to a traffic light complex) As he was turning right at this roundabout someone knocked him off his bike and he hit his head on the kerb. Apparently he lay unconscious there without anyone stopping for some time eventually an ambulance was called and he was taken to A&E. I remember being picked up from school by mum (me & my sister normally walked home as this was the 70's paedophiles weren't invented yet) and thinking he was dead because of how upset my mum looked.

In hospital he was in a coma for 2 weeks and hospital for over a month and then onto a convalescing home. Then finally he came home. Except that he hadn't come home, my dad actually died on that roundabout, because the man that came home was an utter cunt. To everyone but especially to me, never physically but he would lash out with words when ever he could. I tried my best to please him and he tried his best to make me cry. Eventually by about 13 he was drinking quite heavily I could manage to spend some time in the front room watching telly without him telling what a worthless pile of shit I was because he was pissed and a bit jolly. I'd keep an eye on how much he had so I could bail before he got nasty drunk. Also by this time I could honestly say I couldn't care less about him, and when my parents divorced I was glad to see the back of him. I'd still go and see him in Derby but only very occasionally he wasn’t abusive anymore but it was like talking to a robot. So soon those visits stopped too. Years passed I moved on with my life, Mrs Duck & our daughter were important now not some old drunk bastard

That all changed about a year ago, I received a phone call from a social worker from Derby who had tracked me down on account of our unusual surname. Apparently he had been found in a confused state and taken into hospital. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease which caused dementia. Me & my sister dropped everything to go and visit him. It’s funny if you had asked me hypothetically would you drop everything to go and help your dad I’d have said an emphatic no. But as soon as I took that call I was there.

When he saw us he cried tears of relief (something he would never have done post accident) he also told us he loved us and that we were good kids, words I’d have killed, or at least maimed for, when I was 11. We moved him, as soon as we could, to a nursing home near us and now I go to se him twice a week.

The Parkinson’s is killing him but the dementia has fucked with what ever bit of the brain was making him act like a cunt. We do puzzles and have some amazingly surreal conversations due to his dementia but essentially it’s Dad.
I don’t know how long we have got before he becomes so demented there’s no Dad left or the Parkinson’s shuts down his body and he dies. Whatever at lest I got my dad back for a bit.

Life is too short to feud

Apologies for length and lack of chuckles but it was quite cathartic to type it all out
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 10:59, 12 replies)

Clicks
There's a card game called Chinese Patience (Solitaire for two) see if you can get to play it with him.
( The Scrunt Wants a Dozen Pints, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 11:30, closed)

Fuck, that's a horrible story.
I feel terribly sorry for you, but also your Dad. Without that accident he'd still be the nice guy he was before. He would have had a good relationship with his kids instead of losing contact with you. Was he ever diagnosed with anything? Was it some form of physical change to his brain?
(The man with the flan swashed his buckle on, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 12:32, closed)

..
no actual diagnosis, obviousy it was looked into but the brain is a big complicated thing and his got badly damaged

It was 7 years between the accident and the divorce. We tried to get to him but he wasn't having it.

I'm just tresuring the time we have now, every cloud and that ;o)
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 12:46, closed)

I am not a doctor but I made a documenatry about people with certain traumatic brain injury, and it sounds like he might have experienced damage to the frontal lobes. This is damage often associated with car accidents and often leaves people devoid of emotions and social skills - for example they will look at their family and know that they should love them, but not be capable of feeling the emotion - it is a terrible type of brain injury for love ones to have to deal with and you have my sympathy that it should happen to your Dad. Of course I could be way of the mark...
(MrHungry, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 17:51, closed)

.
I don't know whether to click or not. There's no 'What a shit story, but I'm glad it worked out in the end' button, so I suppose a standard click will have to do.

I'm seriously glad you were able to gain some new happy memories with him, as you'll treasure them much more.

*click*
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 12:57, closed)

Fuck. Wow.
*click*.
(WillI'mNot logs in twice a year, every year, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 13:13, closed)

this made me shed a little tear
and I'm a right hard faced bastard
( shitkicker, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 13:29, closed)

Life
It has away of biting you the arse, patting you on the back and slapping you in the face all at the same time.

*Clickidee click click*
(Free pens 100, 101, 102 is still counting on, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 13:39, closed)

I agree, 'Duck' is a pretty unusual surname.
I like this story, so I shall be clicking. It makes me so sad to hear about things like that...you hear stories exactly like this about how perfectly decent people can just flip because of something that wasn't their fault. There really are no winners, it would seem, but at least you got something like your dad back. It made me so happy to see that you were there for him straight away.
(ConanTroutman thought we would free the vulture, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 14:44, closed)

Parkinsons and dementia
Hi , My mum has had Parkinsons for about 10 years,a horrible pernicious disease, she has had periods of dementia and paranoia like you would not believe a couple of times these have been due to an imbalance in the prescribed drugs. She has just had her drugs checked and is having a good spell. Get an appointment with a consultant in Parkinsons and make sure the drugs are balanced. Best of luck and enjoy the good times. ( I have clicked)
(johnners hitting things with hammers until they work, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 19:46, closed)

You
Just made me cry. Thank god the other people in this part of the office are out fetching coffee and can't see me blubering.

CLICK
(misskitty reeks of sex and turpentine; laudanum afternoons, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 22:45, closed)

i think thats brilliant - you got your dad back
mine was a cunt from birth
(omnishambles ™ has been fucking things up big style since, Wed 18 Nov 2009, 1:49, closed)