DEMENTIA

Dementia is a strange partner.  I keep reading that they get along better with a scheduled life.  How can that be?  They can’t remember what they did 10 minutes ago; how can a schedule help?  I don’t know the answer to that but let me tell you, I know it is the truth.  We get up, read the newspaper; he will read me the same thing two or three times. We eat a simple breakfast, he takes a nap.  About 11:00 we go to McClains for lunch.  Come home and he has another nap – a long one.  Either watch TV or listen to music.  Have cereal or soup or a sandwich for supper and go to bed early.  I paint, sew or work in the garden; so I am okay with this. 

Sometimes I fix lunch at home.  (We have good food; we’ve had a lot of fresh asparagus out of the garden this spring.)  He has his afternoon nap but it is not the same.  He is unsettled.  Things are not right.  I don’t understand. 

The experts also tell me that they don’t do well with moves to another home.  They never adjust; they never feel like the new place is their home.  They start to go downhill faster.   Thinking we need to keep the house in shape for the time we need to move closer to our children, we have done a few things.  Last summer we had the retaining wall worked on.  This summer I plan to have the sprinkler system worked on.  Will we need to stay here and not move?  Who knows?

 I hate the thought of moving for myself – leaving my friends.  And I love living in a small place.  I tell myself that I don’t like not knowing what is in the future.  Then I remind myself that we never

know what is in the future – even when we think we know.  So what is different?

I seem unsettled tonight myself.

SUE

 SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED

A lot has happened since last time I blogged. 

Darling fell again.  Did not mess up his face like last time.  No cuts or bruises but his nose did not stop bleeding for about six hours.  He could not remember to sit up (to keep his head above his heart), also could not remember to keep his head tilted back so the blood would not run out his nose so badly.  Since he could not remember all this he kept wanting to go to bed.  I kept trying to keep him up so head would not be level with heart and head not tilted back.  I finally gave up about 1:00a.m. and said go to bed.  Once again, he bled all over his pillows, the sheets, blanket, pillow covers, mattress cover, not to mention carpets from living room to bath room.  I threw away his pillows this time, they had already been through the washer/dryer twice.

  As I said before blood is impossible to clean up; so if you are planning to murder someone, don’t let blood be involved.

   I have been told that each time they fall, they don’t seem to come back up to the level they were before the fall.  This seems to me to be the case.

Tonight we have been watching the news and he asked me where Sue (his sister) lives.  I had to tell him she had died about 10 years ago.  He wanted to know what had caused her death – heart attack?  No, she had scleraderma (sp).  What is that?  A disease of the connective tissue, and tried to describe how it works.  Has Boyd remarried?  (He remembered her husband’s name.)  No, and I said something about their children and he was really surprised they had children.  How many, how old are they?  Where do they live?  I gave him a complete report.  When I finished, he said “thank you for telling me”.  I had the feeling he was rather embarrassed that he had not remembered.  Was that my imagination?  Don’t know.  Entirely possible.  They must have to really trust the caregiver. 

So sad.  Heart breaking.  If I were a crying person, I am sure I would be crying.

OUR DAUGHTER MADE US RICH, WELL AT LEAST COMFORTABLE

Did I tell you my daughter made me rich?  And it did not cost a cent.

A few years ago when James let me take over the bill paying again, I noticed money was tight.  I kept taking money out of the Money Market account until that was all gone.  Then I started cutting back.  Reduced our channels on Direct TV, started asking the doctors for free samples of the meds we take to cut down on medicine expense, even started cooking at home more, (yuck).  Yes, most of us, at sometime in our lives, have been poor enough to know how to do this even though we might not want to. Finally faced up to the fact that our monthly income simply was not enough to cover the way we like to live.  I was telling our daughter, Missy, this and she asked about the CD’s that used to be in the bank, did we still have them and couldn’t we dip into theses?  I said yes, we still had them but I did not want to use them – I was saving them until we got old and might need the money.  Her mouth started twitching and then she chuckled and then the full blown throw her head back and laugh. And then I joined her.  Okay, so we were old and needed the money; the time had come; I just hadn’t noticed it.  Son of a Gun!!!!

So now about every six months I take out some money and add it to the bank account to be used in our regular life.  It really works out well since we are required to take out a certain amount from the IRA’s.

Aren’t our children  wonderful?

RECOVER FROM FALL

Well Darling is all healed up from his fall.  I really did not know if he would ever look this good again.  The eight stitches are out and there is just a little line where the gash was.

THE BIG FALL

I was in the bedroom Wednesday night watching one of the English comedies.  There was a big KERRR PLUNKKK in the living room and I knew immediately James had fallen.  I was in there in seconds to find him on the floor on his stomach with his head on the tile of the entry way in a puddle of blood.  He didn’t know what had caused him to fall.  We got him turned over and cleaned up.  There was a gash on his forehead and his nose was no longer straight; it now went off at a slant.  There were some abrasions and it looked like a little piece of his nose was gone.  We almost never got him up and in bed.  He could hardly walk and I knew I could never get him down the porch steps to the car.  It was call an ambulance or put him to bed

You may not want to read the next paragraph.

When I was cleaning up all the blood on the tile there was a little piece of flesh that I knew was his nose.  I picked it up and put it on a paper towel on the counter in the bathroom.  Thought I would put it in a little plastic bottle that craft people put beads in.  You know, like they do in TV programs like Bones.  No, I didn’t plan to keep it forever but thought I would show it to Missy and maybe Kelley.  Most of the rest of the family is too squeamish for that.  The next morning it was gone.  Did the cat eat it?  Later, while I was on my hands and knees cleaning up some more blood droplets in the bathroom, I found it again.  So it is back on a paper towel in the guest bathroom with the door closed.  This was probably more than you wanted to know. 

Next morning (about 5:00 a.m.) we went to the emergency room.  His nose was bleeding again but it was straight now, no longer at a slant.  They cleaned him up, took eight stitches in the gash over his eyebrow, did x-rays etc, nothing broken.  His nose did not want to quit bleeding and they gave us directions on how to position him to help it clot, gave us a prescription for antibiotics and we came back home. 

His nose bleeds off and on and he now has two black eyes and green bruises, plus abrasions and the stitched up gash.  I am sure we will skip church tomorrow.  He looks so awful some people would be repulsed. 

Let me give you one bit of advice.  If you ever decide to kill someone; do it in a way that does not cause blood shed.  Blood is really, really hard to clean up and you would be caught for sure.

CLEAVAGE

As I have mentioned before, my darling still notices the ladies and appreciates their attributes.

A while back in McClains he pointed out to me a girl in a pink sweater with impressive cleavage. I agreed that she had impressive cleavage. Then he suggested that I dress like that and show my cleavage. I said no, I didn’t think I would do that. But he insisted. When I kept saying no he asked me why. So I told him. There are two reasons. 1) My cleavage is a lot lower than it used to be. 2) It looks like it is covered with crepe paper. He laughed until I thought he would fall off the chair. You would think I was funnier than Tim Conway. And what about crepe paper? When girls are young we make costumes out of crepe paper, and doll clothes and in teen years we decorated the gym with crepe paper for dances. I bet he has never had crepe paper in his hands. So was it the other part? The lower cleavage? Whatever it was I appreciate the fact that he is still easy to get along with and enjoys life. Hope this part lasts a long long time.

NEW ADVENTURES IN TIPPING

James, our friend Dorothy and I went to McClains for lunch. James wanted to pay and Dorothy wanted to pay. They back and forthed for a while and then Dorothy said she would leave the tip and she laid down her money. James put down tip money too. I told him Dorothy was leaving the tip. He said he knew that. They went up to the front and I stood looking at the table wondering what to do. I finally thought “great balls of fire, Maridelle, you don’t have to fix everything”. So I turned and left too.

I bet Tabatha, our waitress, was surprised to get a 9.00 tip for lunch in a country cafe.