Day Care – Here We Come!

The past few days have been a whirlwind – and in the best possible way. So many good things have been happening!

I met with the man from DSS on Friday and answered questions over the phone for an hour. Lots of the questions had to do with M and how things are going with him, but a few of the questions were about me.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, with one being no stress and 10 being the most stress ever, how stressful would you say your life is?”

Does it only go to 10?

Hahahahahaha – I’m not kidding.

When we finished the interview, he let me know that M will be able to attend Memory Care Day Care and DSS will cover the entire amount of the cost.

WHAT?!?!

To say I was stunned is putting it mildly. I was speechless. There’s a part of me that feels as though we don’t deserve this; that there must be people out there who are more needy and more deserving than we are.

But I have to be honest with myself. There was NO WAY I could afford the cost of daily care for him. I was going to have to beg, borrow and steal to make it happen – but I was willing to do that.

Now, I don’t have to.

I’m spending the next few days getting the final pieces put into place for M to be able to attend and maybe by the end of the first week in May, he’ll be there. There are all sorts of things they need – doctors reports, medical records, powers of attorney, a new COVID test – but I’m getting it done!

I feel like I’m sending him to camp.

Yesterday, I made a HUGE error in judgement – and learned my lesson at 2 am.

For the past week or so, I’ve been giving M Benadryl at night to help him sleep through the night. I feel a little bit guilty about it, but he sleeps and therefore I sleep, so I’ve been doing it.

Last night, the guilt got to me so I decided he didn’t need it (WHAT was I thinking?!?!) and I didn’t give it to him.

Bing! Cue the 2 am conversation with himself.

He couldn’t tell me why he was talking to himself at 2 am or what was bothering him. But he kept up a steady drone of talk for a good hour or more. I finally closed my door and let him entertain himself – but when my alarm went off this morning, I didn’t get up.

Then I turned over and went back to sleep.

Fortunately, I was only 10 minutes or so late for work, but when the new boss beats you to the office and it’s your job to open the office in the morning – that’s not good.

Guess what’s on the menu for bedtime tonight.