Rollercoaster Kind of Week
We’ll start with last Friday, it was busy. Jim woke me up at 5am to get to the baseball diamond early because the kids were starting their new season today. His kids are middle-aged and haven’t played baseball in 40 years. We both had blood tests in the morning, which required fasting. So I’m …. Read More
Review And Reflect
I took time last night and read this blog from start to finish. HO-LY CRAP! This has been an adventure. The worst kind of one, but still an adventure. I have to give myself, and all other caregivers, more credit. In hindsight, I was doing so much better than I thought I was. I’d …. Read More
Hello Again, It’s Been A While.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner, but recently I joined two online dementia caregiver groups via Facebook. It’s been beneficial. Not only am I learning from people slightly ahead of me in the process, I can share what I’ve learned to those coming behind me. It’s validating at a time …. Read More
Welcome to 2023
Happy New Year! May you have joy and peace this year. It’s been a rough few months. I have barely been writing. Hell I haven’t been reading as much as I used to either. However, there has been a lot of me staring blankly into space, contemplating life and how to handle the coming …. Read More
Overwhelmed
I’m sure most of you can relate to being overwhelmed at some point, right now it’s never ending. It feels silly to be this way because on the surface, we don’t do anything. Our schedule is set. Wake up, relax, have lunch, relax or maybe run an errand, have supper, watch TV and then …. Read More
Feeling Trapped
If I sit beside Jim while he’s napping, he’s content. If I move to a different part of the house, he comes searching. It’s like he has a proximity beacon that alerts him when I’m more than five feet away, making it impossible for me to have a few minutes to myself for a …. Read More
Regression
The past two days have been awful. Jim has regressed back to where he was just after moved here. Academically, I knew this could happen but I don’t think anyone can truly be prepared for such a large set-back/regression/memory fail. Acerbated by his desire to leave, and go back to where it’s familiar, even …. Read More
Hiking Poles
After Jim’s recent falls and general unsteadiness, I bought him a set of hiking poles. While technically, this isn’t using technology, the new style of poles are strong and light-weight. I’ve mentioned the possibility of using them before and been met with outright rejection. He wasn’t interested in them at all. This time I …. Read More
Temporary Lucidity Then A Decline
On Tuesday, Jim was more lucid than normal. He remembered the homecare worker had been in several times and thought to ask me how much she cost. I was happy and hopeful that the decline caused by the stress of moving had righted itself now that life had settled down again. Yeah, not so …. Read More
Time Flies
We’re coming up on three months since our move across the country. For the most part, Jim has not regained much of his short term memory after the decline, I’d hoped, was due to the stress from packing up the old house and settling into the new one. Today though, he surprised me by …. Read More