caregiver

Seek the good in what lies ahead of you. 

CAREGIVER NOTES:

Tentative steps. He’s watched the progress of the deck build with great interest the last 2 weeks. Asking questions, offering advice from his huge bank of wisdom of his own building knowledge. However, yesterday, there was a lot of hesitation about taking that first step out onto the deck. There’s no step down on to the landing. It’s handicap accessible now and the deck flooring is level with the threshold of the door. He’ll be able to access using a walker or the wheel chair if that becomes necessary in the future. I wonder if it has to do with the memory of having something to hold onto when he stepped out previously and now there’s no railing for him to hang onto as he had to do previously with just the landing and steps down into the yard. Hmmmmm….

Look for the rainbows

CAREGIVER NOTE:

More lucid dreams – and not recognizing where he was for a while. He searched through the drawers of the dresser looking for his clothes. He couldn’t place what was in the drawers as being his. Grateful he was a bit calmer than our last episode. He was able to go back to bed after some reassurance that he was in our home, that he was in his room with his clothes and other things.

Find some good in every day.

CAREGIVER NOTE:

Finding 3 positives was easy overnight. He named them quickly — no bad dreams, the shadows in the room didn’t scare him (and there were lots as the security lights were triggered frequently last night) and he was happy he had someone checking on him when they heard he was up. Earlier in the day he was excited about the progress being made on the handicap accessible deck — which he should be able to enjoy sitting on tomorrow while we still have some warm weather in the afternoon and early evening. He even switched on his table light to help me with a little more light while I applied the water shield to the decking joists last evening.

Count your blessings….

Name them one by one.

CAREGIVER NOTE:

Yesterday was difficult. The vivid dream was very real to him. We had to go outside in the dark to ensure that all was safe and no one was in danger. It took several hours for him to put the pieces to together and he was scared that he was really losing it. He’s realizing that things aren’t working as they should and he can’t process things as he thinks he should be able to do. It’s SCARY – both for him and for us.