Our Dog Ziggy

My friend from a writing class always sends forwarded e-mail. This picture is from one and captures what I want to say about dog, Ziggy.

Ziggy doesn't like me to leave the house just as hubby misses me.

I'm getting dressed and Ziggy is getting upset.

When I leave, I kiss hubby and Ziggy. When I call hubby tells me how Ziggy misses me.  Meanwhile, Ziggy is a wonderful companion for hubby while I am gone. I do not believe that my hubby would wander as some Alzheimer's patients do, because he and Ziggy are devoted to each other.


from Pinterest

Now there are dog people and cat people. We are dog people. I do think that the unconditional love of a good pet helps the stability of persons with dementia. On my husband's daily clipboard are reminders:

1. Has Ziggy been outside?
2. Has Ziggy been fed. 

Sometimes he will forget to shave, take his pills, eat lunch when I leave the house early, but care of Ziggy is his top priority. Pets are such good therapy both for persons with dementia and their caregivers/lovegivers.

Saga Twenty-Six

Car trouble. It's leaking fluid on Wednesday. Hubby notices when we are on errands. Says that someone who parked in our place before must have had a problem. Several hours later I also notice this liquid in our garage when I go to bring something to the car. Hubby has more long-term memory of car repairs than I ever had. I have also never driven a car with so many miles on it. I show DH the problem liquid in the garage.

You may recall that our newer car was totaled. See Saga Seven. The 1999 lots-of-mileage-gas guzzler has been our means of transportation for the last year and a half. It has served us well with our camping adventures. No more popup camping and probably no more camping. Hubby is very happy to stay around home with ventures out for activities and errands. He has accepted not driving as reported in Saga Twenty, despite the fact he passed two Alzheimer's driving tests.

"Call triple A," he tells me. I do that and the same Plant City tow company that picked up our totaled car comes and takes the gas guzzler away. The driver remembers out totaled car being in their towing yard when I show him the picture. I tell him how I use that experience with a DUI driver when I teach classes for DUI offenders.

"Where is our car?" hubby wants to know and I tell him what happened.

Again, "Where is our car?"

"I am bored," he proclaims. This is curious to me because he is usually content watching his extensive collection of old movies which he keeps right before him on the couch. There is no car for us to venture out of the house. I realize that he does like variety. He likes going to Toastmaster meetings with me and of course to our church. He loves going out to a movie if I can find one that has a strong plot, without complicated dialogue and intrigue, that would suit him.

We go to bed at the proverbial old people's time of 8 PM. Thursday and Friday the car will be repaired. I have appointments to change and need our car Saturday and all next week.

It's Thursday morning and I talk calmly about the car being fixed. He has forgotten about the estimated $800 needed to fix the car, but I haven't. I miss the strong hubby who used to take charge of car repairs.

LORD, help me just to do the next thing at home and to trust you for the outcome.

Added Saturday morning, July 14th. Got car back last night with the $1127.75 bill;  took $500 out of savings and charged $627.75. Labor was $878 to get to the problem. Something about the heater and cooling systems. Mileage for this 1999 gas guzzler is 192, 485. Maybe it will last to 300,000 miles now. Have a busy week ahead and glad for two days it could be fixed. Grateful for Sally and Jake who took us to get the car and had dinner with us. Hubby and Jake are soooo funny together.

Learn as You Go or Prepare Ahead?

“It is best to learn as we go, not as we have learned.”

― Anonymous

Some things I have learned as we take this Alzheimer's journey:

• My pastor and trusted friends can't really always advise me. They can pray.
• My husband's children don't know what to say. I think they admire our journey from a distance and certainly hope they remember us in prayer.
• My husband has a VERY poor sense of time, not just short-term memory. Because he knows this, he regularly checks with me.
• My husband enjoys his life. He lives one moment at a time. This includes seeing movies repeatedly. His favorites include "The Titanic", "Walk the Line", "Fireproof" and "Pearl Harbor". Old movies are best because the new ones have too much action and intrigue often to follow.
• My husband loves me. We tell each other this often. I am with him in his journey.
• I learned to accept sundowning episodes and the anger of my husband because of the missing neurons in his hippocampus. When he called me an A-Hole the other day, I was calm. Later I told him what he had said and he apologized.  We marry a man who doesn't swear, and then they get Alzheimer's and swear! This is God's lesson to me to rely on Him for MY patience.
• There is a wonderful blogger network out there. We encourage each other.
• Provide a lot of clues for hubby to manage on his own when I am gone.
• Get in a support group. Sally and I are in one that meets monthly. Hubby and I are in one that meets monthly.
• Scripture keeps speaking to me with my caregiver's stress.
• Have an Alzheimer's driving test. Hubby will have his second one Oct. 28th.

On the other hand, there are some things I have to prepare for:

• My own health. I got into emotional eating when I realized that he has Alzheimer's. I need to prepare for the Alzheimer's walk on Oct. 29th also and appreciate those who have contributed. You can do so on line. Great encouragement to me and "Ann", my Alzheimer's Association support group facilitator. Her team that I am no needs to raise more money. Click on the link at the top right. I have  thanked people who contribute in person or by e-mail. 
• Simplifying our life. Keep things in the same spot that my husband is used to. Use priorities as in Staci Eastin's book reviewed here.
• Get credit cards paid off while I can work extra jobs.
• What I can't prepare for is in the LORD's hands. Questions remain such as what if I can't take care of hubby in the future. Yet the Lord is my great Caregiver.

Worry weighs a person down;

an encouraging word cheers a person up.

Proverbs 12:25 NLT

Thanks to my Associate Pastor who e-mail me that he and his wife are praying. This was an encouraging word today and to his wife and others who contributed to the Walk or contribute by prayer.

Ten Top Caregiving Mistakes

1. Thinking you can do this on your own. You need a support group or system for YOU, the caregiver.
2. Thinking your loved one fits a pattern of another person with Alzheimer's. Everyone is different and diagnosis is tentative. My husband has Mixed Dementia, for example, and I am so fortunate at how pleasant he is.
3. Thinking you can argue with a person who has Alzheimer's. It won't work. He will obsess about an issue that is on his mind. She will want to do things from her long-term memory that maybe she can't any more--just let her try.
4. Not establishing a schedule or routine for your loved one. This morning my husband wanted me to print out that schedule, even though we are essentially staying home.
5. Not being proactive and not thinking down the road. Simplify life, have your will completed. How can you make the house safe? How can you keep items where they belong so that your loved one knows where to find it?
6. Withdrawing from your loved one emotionally. They have changed, but that doesn't mean they don't have emotions. They lose memory, but not fondness for your love. And you need their love also!
7. Stop living your life! No! Go to Disney if they can handle it at their stage. Take them along on errands as long as they can do this with you.
8. Being embarrassed by your loved one. Wink at someone when you know they are hearing a story for a second or third time.
9. Doing too much for them. There is a lot they still can do to help. My husband folds laundry I put on the pool table. He also fills up bottles of diet Lipton green tea and water. (We reuse our bottles.) He mows the lawn on a riding lawn mower and sometimes weeds.
10. Throwing your hands up in despair.  Life doesn't owe you no problems. God is there for you.

How to Manage Worry

Perhaps some people do not want to read this blog because it might cause them to worry.  What if this happens to my loved one? What if I get Alzheimer's and how will my spouse manage? I must confess that last year about this time my worry blossomed big time.

Then I started instead to learn all I could about the disease and make the best possible situation for DH (dear husband). I began going to an Alzheimer's Association support group once a month. Slowly I have begun to live for the moment--we camp now and we even went dancing with Jake and Sally! Bob on the Alzheimer's Reading Room advises to live your life as you always have. I became concerned for the concerns of others. Today DH and I  visited Sue whose husband has both Alzheimer's and cancer. The life of a caregiver is not all about worry. Some call changes the new normal.

I am determined to not be a worry wart. I have been immersing myself in Scripture. How does Scripture help me? It  helps me, for one thing,  accept my imperfections, my sin, and do something about it. Scripture helps me not to be proud about anything I can do, be, or become and gives me guidelines to help me live out my faith, to be obedient and content with my calling as a caregiver. Scripture helps me cope. I post Scripture highlights on my Facebook notes every day now since the beginning of January.

Last Monday morning I was going to substitute teach at two schools (one in the AM and one in the PM) and had too much to do to get out of the house. I started feeling sorry for myself (sinning), barking orders at DH--get my watch, plant flowers today so they won't die, don't forget to take your pills, eat your breakfast and please make your lunch--I don't have time! He can't handle all those verbal orders and inside of me I knew that I needed to be calm with him. I was as angry at all I was having to do just as I read earlier that morning about Balaam in the Old Testament book of Numbers.  Balaam beat his donkey for not obeying him. But with the Scripture reading I saw that Balaam had to learn to do ONLY what God wanted him to do. To get through to Balaam God even had to have his donkey talk to him! I had to see that I can only do so much and it's okay--what does God want me to do or not do?  I called DH and apologized for my short-tempered barking out of orders to him.  Everything worked out fine on Monday and even when I came home my husband, who is often unmotivated, had put flowers in the planter boxes! Christ uses Scripture to work out sancification (His best) in my life and helps me calm down with input such as the story o Balaam.

Isn't worry justifiable, understandable, for the caregiver?  I am taking a class on anger, worry and depression. One of the books for the course is called Down, But Not Out: How to Get Up When Life Knocks You Down, by Wayne A. Mack. Mack has the nerve to call worry a sin but says we can overcome it! We learn first that the foundation for overcoming anxiety is a personal, vital relationship with Jesus Christ, he writes. Putting struggles in perspective he continues:

As believers, we have trusted God for our salvation, for forgiveness of sins, and for a guarantee of eternity in heaven. Why then are we not willing to trust Him for our food and clothes and health and all these other things [a husband with Alzheimer's] that are of infinitely less important than our salvation? (p. 72) . . . When we experience anxiety, we need to make sure that we surround ourselves with godly people who can encourage and admonish us. In other words, people who can lift our spirits but who can rightly point out our sin in a loving manner. (p. 77)

So many people who comment here do lift my caregiver's spirits. Above all,  God can be trusted with the road ahead and my worry will not add to the outcome. The Lord has led in the past. There is nothing He and I cannot handle together.

Wonderful Scripture supports this peace the believer can have.  Mack himself expounds on Philippians 4:6, 7:

Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. New Living Translation

Worry can be managed, folks. What Scripture or techniques help you?

Saga Five

DH is trying so hard to have a normal life and I am trying hard to give him that normal life. He used to be the one who managed technology; however, it confuses him now--big time. Now I have to be up on everything--often a challenge for me. He has such a pleasant personality, except when something doesn't make sense to him.

1. He asks me how to input an address in his GPS and I write it up for him. Guess what the address was for? A movie store in Lakeland! Now I pointed out to him that Block Buster Video is closer and really don't want him going to Lakeland, but he enjoys his independence. He still hasn't figured out that Alzheimer's impairs him.
2. He asks for directions to be written for how he watches his movies on DVD and Video. Recently we realized that neither one of our DVD players were working and so we bought a cheap one--not the "blue" kind. He needs written directions so he can manage his hobby of watching movies.
3. The suggestion was made to order DVDs, but you know, hubby doesn't remember all about a movie and likes to own them so he can see them again and again. We have a list of his DVDs and videos so he doesn't order one he already has. Thanks to my sister-in-law for typing up that list I just maintain now.
4. He loves to accompany me and relishes rescuing me if I am somewhere and have car trouble. He has major places I work in "Miss Garmin", his GPS.
5. Two days this week he has forgotten to eat lunch. When the WellCare insurance man was here on Monday he was very mad about the length of the visit. (AARP is increasing their insurance fees next year. But we won't be under their Medicare Advantage plan any more and will save money not only on the fees but also on medicine.) He was hungry! We went to dinner after that important insurance appointment and when we came home I saw his lunch in the refrigerator. No wonder he was hungry! He hadn't eaten.Another day when I called I mentioned lunch; he said he had eaten, but really that was another day he was remembering.

Life still is confusing for him. The big FlyLady calendar helps so much as does his watch. Time is a huge part of his confusion and all I can do to explain time and events to him is so helpful.

Next week I get to be with him 24/7 and so he will have less confusion. Hope I can coax him into cleaning the carpet and weeding outside, but if not I will just remain calm and manage getting ready for our five Thanksgiving guests. Hopefully my sister-in-law will notice big changes in simplifying at the house. Still have to figure out what to do with the stuff in the garage that didn't sell. However, next week doesn't register in hubby's mind. One day at a time for hubby. We should all live one day at a time!