Caregiver's Fabulous Birthday

We laughed at the birthday card pictured here that my husband gave me and so did the clerk. He turned around to see if the clerk thought his head looked like the model on the card! On the inside were birthday wishes and "you are my main squeeze"! And he wrote that he promised to help with dishes!

My birthday was yesterday and my husband and I set out to celebrate it. Ordinarily I would not post this celebration, but I wanted to post it as a celebration of good times. We both enjoyed the day and I just didn't notice he was  memory-impaired.

First we had brunch at Cracker Barrell where he noticed the surroundings and commended on them. He talked about the man over seven feet tall. I asked "where". He said he would show him to me when he returned to the room. Sure enough--he showed me--no short-term memory with that experience. And he said this memorable quote,

Enjoy life. Swish it around! We are retired!

We went on Channelside, a place in Tampa where I had never been.  There we shopped, shared Mud Pie Mocha ice cream at Cold Stone and went to the movie, "Killer"--plenty of action for him and romantic comedy for me. I left my glasses in the movie--we all forget things!  My husband was very calm when I discovered my loss. He drove back maybe six miles so I could retrieve my glasses. He paitiently waited in the car while I went back to the Cinema. I was expecting a call on my cell phone--Where are you?" But he did not call--excellent short-term memory again!

During time in the restaurants he reminised. I wrote down what he said and thoroughly enjoyed the day. He talked about his father's time in the service and his time in the Coast Guard. When he bought my birthday card pictured here, he even bought himself a Coast Guard cap --said he had always wanted that cap.

There were quite a few birthday greetings for me on Facebook and I will post pictures on his Facebook photos so that he remembers yesterday as I have for other events.

My gifts from others included two books on Alzheimer's that I will review this summer on Plant City Lady. When I opened them I had to hide them from him so he wouldn't see a word like "dementia" on the titles. He doesn't want to be treated like something is wrong with him. Yesterday I hardly noticed anyway!