Hospital Stay Reflections
Having Jim in hospital has been a learning experience. Some positive, some negative. Positives: The nurses and aids are absolutely fantastic. Sure, sometimes they’re abrupt but if you listen to what they’re dealing with, on a daily, hourly, and minute-ly basis you’ll understand. Some patients treat them like indentured servants and/or punching bags (both …. Read More
Geriatric Assessment
Jim was originally diagnosed with dementia in April 2020. It was right at the start of the pandemic, so it was a phone assessment rather than an in person appointment. This time, we got the full experience. Jim handled it like a champ. It was a two hour appointment where they tested his balance and …. Read More
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
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
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
Cross Country Traveling
I knew I was nuts for attempting to travel across the country with someone with dementia. It was as good as I’d hoped and as devastating as I’d feared. We started off our trip by staying at a hotel close to the airport. It was easier for Jim’s grandchild to pick up the car …. Read More
Overstimulation
Yesterday was ‘interesting’. I’m sure Jim could sense my excitement as I closed the purchase for the house back East. Happily, the plumbers for to water-main/supply leak under my lawn came a day early to distract him. He stood in the window all day and watched as they dug a 10 foot trench and …. Read More
Kicked Out Of Bed
If you’re like me and have a spouse with dementia, there are some aspects of the encroaching disease that the children of the affected don’t have to deal with. Weaning ourselves from sleeping together. I don’t want to, but it’s becoming a necessity for our health. Over the past year or so, Jim has …. Read More
Year End Wrap Up
The last few weeks have shown me exactly how much I’ve lost my husband. Using the scale I devised to measure his decline (assuming him as 100% in 2014): He was 90% in July 2017 – Able to function normally, but lost the ability to critically comprehend complex processes like investments, getting a loan …. Read More