caregiver

count your blessings

​Despite the challenges of the day, count your blessings.  There are many.

CAREGIVER NOTE:

He’s been a little gentler the last couple of days. Kinder with his words and trying to listen a little more as he tries to process what he’s been hearing. He has been worried about “losing his mind” a lot more and has been noticing that it is much more difficult for him to get things to “stick.” My heart hurts for him and his children — as we see him drifting further and further into the depths of dementia.

Positives:
Music – he’s really enjoying the easy listening channel I recently discovered. It really does calm him a bit
Clouds – he enjoys watching the clouds and didn’t mind feeling the first few drops of rain before moving back into the house
Antiques Roadshow — he sure is glad we don’t have any of that so called “junk” around here as he’s just not sure what he’d do with it if he had it. LOL

Be your best you.

CAREGIVER NOTE

Change is inevitable with dementia. It looks like he’s entering the next stage. He’s getting “lost” in the house more frequently – not sure where things are or how to do things he has been very familiar with. His short term memory is almost non-existent. He’s having a more difficult time with conversation and finding words.

On the up side: I did find a music channel he seems to enjoy listening to. I caught him moving his feet to the rhythm of the music and even do a little humming to some of the more familiar tunes he heard. I think/hope we’ll be playing some music for a little while every day.

Positives for the day:
He wanted to go out for breakfast with T
He enjoyed going shopping at the bookstore with T
He was all smiles.

Use your experiences for good. 

CAREGIVER NOTE

The proverbial rabbit hole was present for most of the afternoon and early evening. He kept finding ways to dive right in and it took lots of effort to get him out of there.

Positives for the day:
smiles and laughter along with his one liners
wanting connection and conversation
he ate and wanted a healthy snack

It sure is. Make it happen!

CAREGIVER NOTE:

Back in time was the order of the day. A little messy since he felt he really needed to talk to his Uncle and explain why he couldn’t help at the farm and drive one of the teams and he wanted to talk to other members of his family – they’re all long gone. I felt so bad having to tell him that I didn’t have phone numbers for any of them. He realized how “alone” he was a little later and he shed a few tears. That has to be so hard! He asked again how old he was and asked why he was still here….

Positives of the day:
He popped off a few zingers
He didn’t stay in the “rabbit hole” of sadness for very long
He even suggested looking for something good that was going on in the day.

awesomeness.

CAREGIVER NOTE:

Much better sleep cycle overnight. He enjoyed watching the news during the day and some pro football last evening before calling it a day. (He was even doing a little back seat quarterbacking during a couple of quarters.) He chose not to venture outside yesterday. He ate really light all day… not sure if that was because he was still having some gut issues from the night before or not. He couldn’t pinpoint his food choices for the day other than they just sounded good.

Don’t miss out on the blessings of today.

CAREGIVER NOTE:
He had a really bad night — not sure who he was yelling at for most of the hour long episode, but I did hear one familiar name he asked for help from at the very beginning. I do hope he’ll be in good spirits today and not as many “loose ends” as yesterday. T took him for a ride, to get a haircut and a shave and out to lunch before stopping at their favorite store before coming home. He took a mini stroll around the backyard checking out a few things — wanting to know how to unlock the gate before coming back into the house. I fibbed and told him it was locked from the other side. He did find the release, but didn’t lift it enough to unlock one side of the gate. I’ve no doubt that if left long enough on his own, he’d figure out how to get out of the yard through one of the gates or break the gate to do so.

Positives:
He enjoyed watching a college football game — it went into double overtime.
He was freely giving hugs yesterday
He had lots of smiles
He asked for help in before getting too frustrated