Travel . . . Stop

Well, that’s it. M and I have done our traveling for the year. All in two weekends.

That’s kind of sad, isn’t it? But trying to travel and being away from home with a dementia patient is not for the weak-willed or faint of heart.

Over Mother’s Day weekend, we drove to Atlanta to see the Atlanta Braves play the Philadelphia Phillies (baseball.) The drive down wasn’t bad – although traffic on I-85 was ridiculous the whole way there. M was in a good mood and excited about the games.

We got to the stadium on Friday for the first game and had planned to meet our younger son there. As we walked in, I told M we were looking for section 154 and turned to the right to find our seat.

It was the first night, in over a year, that the stadium allowed 100% capacity so you can IMAGINE the number of people that were there. Plus, it was a nice evening and a Friday night . . . I was ducking and dodging my way through the crowd – making plenty of room for M to follow.

I turned to tell him that I thought we were almost to our section . . . and he was nowhere near me.

I looked all around where I was and in the direction I had come from – but M wasn’t there at all. No problem. He was wearing his Gizmo watch – I would give him a call.

I called. And called. And called. He didn’t answer. Finally, I got a notice on my phone that said his watch battery was down to 20% and was turning off.

AARRRGGGHHH!!!

The location feature of the watch hadn’t helped me either – it just told me he was at the stadium.

I found a Guest Services Representative and asked for help. She was wonderful! I was able to describe M (he’s wearing a Phillies jersey) and we started retracing my path back to the gate where he and I had come into the stadium.

Do you know, I found him RIGHT THERE where I had originally turned to him to tell him what section we were looking for? Evidently, once I said “Section 154” he stopped walking and hadn’t taken another step.

Once I was able to breathe again, we found our seats and it wasn’t five minutes later before our son sat down beside us. Our seats were in the “home run terrace” (read WAY out in center field) which were not bad, but we couldn’t see the big video screens or any of the fireworks.

And then the Braves lost that night. Ugh.

The next day was fun – sight-seeing around the area – although M did have a bit of a meltdown.

Everything had been going along just fine, until it was time to get ready to go to Saturday’s game. Some switch in his brain flipped and he decided I had changed from “the other girl” back to me and he wanted to know where she was.

I try to be vague with those questions – it’s kind of like Superman and Clark Kent, we both can’t be in the same place at the same time. Of course, that day, he wasn’t having any part of it. It wasn’t FAIR that the other girl was sent away, it was all a bunch of BS, he was sick of it and he wanted us all to know that.

Evidently, he also wanted the other guests at the hotel to know it, too. Cause he was LOUD!

Younger son and I did everything we could think of to snap him out of it. We called his brother in NJ. Didn’t help. Then we called our older son. Didn’t help. Younger son took him for a walk outside. Didn’t help.

Finally, I was fed up. I had spent too much money and time planning this trip for him to spoil it with one of these fits. So I told my son it was time for some tough love. I could tell my son was leery of what I was going to do, but at this point, what did we have to lose?

I got right in M’s face and told him “Okay, buddy – that’s enough. I know you think some sort of trick has been played on you – and I’m sorry. But nobody has done anything to hurt you. What HAS happened is that YS and I have spent a lot of time and money to get you here to see a ballgame this weekend and you are RUINING my mother’s day. So get your jersey on, get your hat and get out the door or else I’m leaving you here in this room to sulk all by yourself.”

Well – you’ve never seen anyone have such a quick turn around – and move so quickly – in your life! He still wasn’t happy, and he grumbled under his breath, but he got himself out the door and he went to the stadium. And, of course, within an hour, all of the drama had been forgotten and he had a great time.

THAT game was fantastic! We sat directly behind home plate – although WAY up in the nosebleed section. The Braves were behind by three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning, but came back and won the game in 12 innings. We were there until after midnight! When they finally won, I jumped up and down and yelled so loudly – I made myself dizzy and had to sit down for a second.

It was so worth it!

The trip back was uneventful and we declared the weekend a huge success.

Tomorrow’s post – we go to NJ. And I can’t read an itinerary.