I am here with this right now.
My Dad is still in the hospital getting diagnosed, but we're all pretty sure that it's some variety of dementia or Alzheimer's. I've been worried about it for a long time. Most everyone else just got annoyed with him because he was so "scatterbrained". No wonder he didn't tell anyone about the hallucinations...

I don't know how to move forward with this. Even worse, I'm 270 miles away. Nothing I could do. Not sure I could do much anyways. I've got my own mental problems that give me enough trouble. I'm unfit to be a caregiver, and I know it. I don't know if my mom knows that she may not be fit, either. I saw the way she treated her own mother, and I can't let her do that to my Dad.

I want to take his guns away. I don't know if I can legally do that or not. He doesn't need them now and I don't want my mom or my sister to just throw them away or donate them to somewhere or something stupid. I'm one of two people in the family who is supposed to get them anyways. I just don't want my Dad wandering around confused, unable to recognize anyone, with a loaded firearm!

Sometimes, he knows us. Sometimes I can tell he's just playing along. Sometimes he's completely lost. I don't know what to do or what to think or even how to feel. In some ways, my Daddy is already gone. And what is left is trapped in a brain that is slowly ceasing to function. How do you guys bear it??