Tag: dementia

(Originally posted in Facebook on February 26, 2019)

Yesterday was a good day – and I’m taking my blessings where I can find them. The sun shone all day . . . and after 10 days in a row of nothing but rain and gloomy skies, the sun was a welcome sight. It wasn’t all that warm, but it was beautiful to see. M not only went to work, but actually STAYED AT WORK ALL DAY! I was stunned. I completely expected to hear from him at any moment that he had started feeling sick and had come home, but he made it. Now I’m hopeful for today. And finally, I talked to my mom this morning and she and my dad are getting along just fine. The insurance people have already gotten a disaster recovery company to work on her condo and the wheels are in motion to get all that straightened out.

Wow.

Now, that’s not to say the day was perfect – there’s no such thing, but it was nice to have a really good day, for a change.

When I got home from work last night, M was watching his usual afternoon television, “How the Universe was Made.” It’s usually that or “Air Disasters” or something else he’s found on the Science Channel. When he’s watching a show, I’ll offer to go upstairs to the bedroom TV, but he insists that I stay in the den and we’ll find something to watch together.

I’ve noticed in the last few months that, no matter what we’re watching, he’ll invariably put on his headphones and start listening to music. And it’s always the same playlist – his ipod playlist of 1980s songs. If I ask him about changing the channel, he’ll tell me that he’s watching the show – but you know there’s no way he can be watching it and really paying attention if he’s listening to music.

On the rare occasion when he watches a show or movie without the headphones, he’ll ask me to repeat something from the show – “What did he say?” or “What was that?” and I’ll say to him, “if you can’t hear it, turn up the volume.” Then he’ll tell me he can hear it just fine. So then I’m left to wonder – can he actually hear it, but he wants me to tell him what’s going on? Or can he NOT hear it and doesn’t want to admit it?

We’re both getting older and we’re from that generation that turned up the music as loud as we could stand it and got as close to the speakers at concerts as we could. I’ve noticed that the volume on the TV and radio is louder for us than it used to be. Is this issue for him a product of age or something more?

(Originally posted in Facebook on February 21, 2019)

Last night wasn’t a ton of fun. M was in a lot of pain from the three attempts to draw spinal fluid and the only pain reliever he can take is Tylenol. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to help much. I had hoped he would feel well enough to go to work today and get his mind off of it, but he didn’t. And now, we’ll try again tomorrow.

The grilled cheese and tomato soup last night was a big hit. I don’t think the temperatures got out of the 30s yesterday, with a steady, cold rain, so hot soup and a sandwich was a perfect dinner. M’s limited movement last night really pointed out how much his appetite has increased lately, because he was asking me to get him more and more things to eat all night long.

I noticed, when I started getting up with him and cooking his breakfast every morning, how much he was packing to take for his lunch to work every day. He’ll make a sandwich with turkey deli meat and mayonnaise, then pack two 4-oz. applesauce cups, 2 of the large P3 portable protein packs (they have a meat, a fruit and nuts) 2 bottles of muscle milk or another protein drink, 2 Atkins bars and 2 bottles of sparkling water. And every bit of that is gone by the time he gets home.

He’ll eat a good dinner and then snack constantly until bedtime. If I say anything to him, he tells me that he’s hungry.

He’s heavier than he was a year ago, but just by five or so pounds. I’m glad he’s eating relatively healthy things, but I wish he weren’t eating so much of them. We can’t have ice cream or any kind of sweets in the house because he’ll start digging into them – and that was never a problem before. 

(Originally posted in Facebook on February 19, 2019)

One of the biggest changes for M has been his relationship with time and getting himself up in the morning. Last year, through the spring and summer, there were several days when M would tell me he had been awake during the night and had looked at his alarm clock, but had been unable to determine what time it was. He’s always been the type of person who liked to wake up before the alarm goes off. He’s never likes the sound of the alarm – whether it’s a beeping sound or music – and he wants to avoid hearing it, if at all possible.

He also has a prescription for glasses – not just readers, but bifocal glasses – and he REFUSES to wear them. He will wear them to drive, especially at night, if I insist on it. And he will wear them to read or to do a task that requires he see something very small and detailed. But other than that – no. If I ask why, he tells me that he doesn’t need them, that he can see just fine. Never mind that an eye doctor has determined that he CANNOT see just fine and has prescribed these glasses for him.

So when M told me he couldn’t figure out what time it was when he looked at his alarm clock, my first thought was that he couldn’t see it . . . he didn’t have his glasses on. So we bought a clock with bigger numbers that he couldn’t miss. But that didn’t stop the problem. Then he started getting up during the night and, even though he could see what the numbers were on the clock beside the bed, he would go down into the kitchen and confirm the time on the clock there – as though he doubted the time he was seeing in the bedroom. There were a couple of times he got up and got himself dressed for work before he realized he was several hours too early.

What made it a problem for me was that he was waking me up every time he got out of bed to check the time. I’ve become a light sleeper in the last five years or so, and his nightly walks around the house were starting to interfere with my sleep. Finally, in the fall, I made a deal with him. I agreed to set my alarm for 5 am – the time he needs to get up. I promised to get up with him and prepare a keto diet-friendly breakfast for him and get him out the door at 5:30, in plenty of time for work, if he would promise to stay in bed and not worry about the time during the night.

So far, it’s worked out pretty well. We’ve been doing this for about six months and, in all that time, he’s only asked me what time it was during the night twice. And I’ve forgotten to set my alarm just once. Fortunately, I woke up at 5:10 that morning, so we were okay.

Something funny happened this past weekend – my youngest brother and his family were visiting us and their youngest daughter is two. At some point during the night, the daughter started crying and M said, “Honey, the baby is crying.” I told him, “Yes, and she has two parents in there who can handle it.” Although I’m sure they would have appreciated it if I had gotten up and taken care of their child for them!

I try to be a good hostess, but there is a limit! 

(Originally posted in Facebook on February 18, 2019)

The changes that have happened with M have been subtle over time – almost imperceptible. It hasn’t been a situation in which one day he was able to perform a task and the next day he wasn’t . . . it’s more that he has slowly begun to do things differently and, by the time I notice how much things have changed, an entirely new pattern of behavior has been established. But if I mention the change, he becomes very defensive about it.

Case in point – lights in the house. Almost every room in our house has overhead lights, but we seldom use those lights because we have lamps in almost all the rooms that we use instead. We’ve always preferred the softer light from the lamps to the harsh light from the overhead light. However, in the last 3 – 6 months, whenever M walks into a room or hallway, he will flip the overhead light on. And leave it on. He NEVER turns them off. He gets home from work about two hours before I do and it’s not unusual for me to drive home and see our entire house lit up like a Christmas tree – every single overhead light in the house on. For a while there, I would say something, like “Do you still need the light on in the pantry?” or “Is it okay if I turn the light off in the bathroom?” and he would tell me he hadn’t turned them on. Now, I don’t even bother mentioning. I just turn them off and go on with what I’m doing. There’s no point in getting upset about it, but more than that – there’s no point in upsetting him about it. He genuinely doesn’t remember turning the lights on and he can’t tell me why he does it. Why start an argument about it?

Just last night, we had turned off all the lights in the downstairs family room and I was in the kitchen of our split-level house, getting the coffee maker set up for the morning. He was upstairs in the bedroom but then went back down into the family room for a minute. When I left the kitchen and walked by the stairs, the overhead light in the family room downstairs was on and he was upstairs in bed. I just sighed and went downstairs to turn the light off. I’m sure I needed the steps.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that he’s tired ALL THE TIME. He wakes up tired. He goes to work tired. He’s tired when he comes home and when he goes to bed. He’s always been able to fall asleep quickly. I once timed him – from the moment he said “good night” and settled down to the moment he was breathing deeply and I could tell he was asleep, it took 40 seconds. I WISH I could fall asleep like that!! But now, it doesn’t matter how much sleep he gets or how busy (or not busy) his work day is – he is ALWAYS tired. He’s asleep most afternoons in front of the TV when I get home. He’s taking a multi-vitamin and B12 supplement and there’s nothing else that should cause him to feel this tired all the time. This is on my list to talk to his doctor about at our next appointment.