Aha Moments in My Caregiving

Not to sound like a braggadocio, but my hubby was great and knew he had a problem. I had to change and learned to take those changes in stride. 

Caregiving.com asked for seven caregiving moments. I actually took the time to read through a lot of this blog. 

One 

Meeting another couple I call “Sally and Jake” (their names on my blog about my husband’s Mixed Dementia) and our doing things together so the Alzheimer’s husbands bonded. Meanwhile Sally and I had support from each other when we did things together. Our husbands went to a senior center together and this would not have happened if they had not first bonded. Jake is not able to go to the senior center without my husband because they used to do this together. 

Two

Using coconut oil that seemed to calm my husband, although it didn’t cure the disease as he passed away June 23 of this year. 

Three

The realization that I was in training since I couldn’t control his disease. I had to change and I often didn’t feel at home in our home because I had to make so many adjustments.

Four

 Handling difficult issues such as driving. I worried and worried. In the end after passing two Alzheimer’s driving tests funded here in Florida, my husband decided on his own that he wished to be a passenger.

Five

 Dealing with Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) and incontinence.

Six

The medical community not understanding my husband’s not being able to walk. At first they thought it was a torn ligament. Then arthritis. A chiropractor helped until several months before he died. Really, not walking is part of a later stage of the disease.

Seven

The incredible help of Hospice so he could die at home and the amazing help of volunteers such as Kenny and Pharis that enabled me to keep working until several months before he died.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

I am so glad that I decided to keep blogging after my husband was diagnosed. I look back on so much life that we participated in even after that diagnosis. I am so grateful to our LORD for taking me through, even as I grieve now for my husband. 

Interview: Saying Goodbye to Papa

Leaves a rich spiritual heritage for his children

I needed my fingerprints made for my DUI instruction just after Labor Day. It was then that Susan Haynes and I met when she did my fingerprints. It was at the time that my husband had two handicaps—he couldn’t walk and he has dementia. Susan and I immediately connected and started talking about her father who had the same two handicaps. We exchanged information and became instant Facebook friends. I told her that I wanted to interview her. Little did I realize then that her Papa Joe would pass away before we had the interview.

Carol: Your dad had difficulty walking since an accident. Tell me about that accident.

Susan: Yes, he was working and he fell off a house and the house fell down and pinned him down. He was taken to the hospital where the medics worked with him, but they knew it had paralyzed him.

Carol: How did the family get Papa Joe to stop driving and stop taking “joy rides”? My oldest brother came over and told him that he was 80 years and that 80 year olds do not need to be driving around. He took his driver’s license to the DMV and Papa let that brother turn it in. How did he accept your mom driving?

Susan: Papa didn’t like mom’s driving, so I would take him to the doctor appointments.

Carol: Your dad would take your daughter to the school at your neighborhood church in his scooter and then pick her up.  Were you all nervous about this trip?

Susan: No, I didn’t think about it at all, because I knew my daughter would keep him straight if she thought he was driving wrong. She told him that she loved him and that he needed to be out at the school at 2:45 pm. I will be looking for you.

Carol: Near the end of you Papa Joe’s life your family started noticing signs of dementia in your dad, right?

Susan: He had been a private man and short-term memory didn’t seem to be the problem, until signs of dementia had set in.  One day my daughter said Papa is getting old. For the last year and a half we started noticing things, but his doctor didn’t notice anything and he wasn’t put on medicine. Seven months ago he started acting like everything in the past as if it was the future.  

Carol: I noticed on Facebook when Papa went to the hospital early in October. Tell me about that.

Susan: The first time my mom asked me to ask him how he was and he told me he was fine and that he was not going to the hospital because he was not sick. When I got ready to leave he began to talk to me about his upset stomach. He said he guessed I should take him to the hospital. His ulcer was bothering him.

The second time he went to the hospital he said that something was wrong in his heart and they needed to fix it. His heart was racing fast and they kept him four days and then he came back home.

The last week of October 2013 my dad spoke softly, didn’t say much and said he was ready to go home to see the people that were not there anymore.  He was very weak, but he tried to be strong and his eyes were so grey.

I got a call from mom at 2 am to come help dad at his house. He was acting strange and when I got there at 2:15 am the ambulance was there and they were putting him on a stretcher and putting him in the ambulance. He was looking one way and would not respond to my calling his name. He had spoken to my mom and brother before I got there, wanting them to help him out of bed to go to the bathroom. But he would not get up, my mom said, and he couldn’t be helped up. That’s when the ambulance was called.        

About this time Sudan wrote on Facebook:  STANDING IN NEED OF PRAYER THIS MORNING FOR MY 88 YEAR OLD DAD WHO WAS ADMITTED IN HOSPITAL AROUND 10 PM LAST NIGHT WITH STOMACH PAIN AND DOC STATED THAT HE NEEDED SURGERY AND THAT HE HAD A SURGERY DOCTOR COMIN IN AROUND 12:OO THE DOCTOR STATED THAT THEY THE DOCTOR WAS IN AND LOOKING AT THE 3 CAT SCANS AND AFTER THAT HE WOULD REPORT TO US AND 1:30 WE WERE TOLD THAT HE WAS NOT DOIN’ IT AND HE WOULD WAIT UNTIL MORNING TO SEE WHAT HE COULD DO FOR MY PAPA.  LORD I AM IN NEED OF PRAYER NOT JUST FOR HIM BUT MY MOTHER AS WELL. SHE IS NOT THE BEST AT HER AGE BUT SHE JUST QUESTIONS THE DOCTOR AND WANTS ANSWERS LIKE WE ALL DO.

Carol: What did the doctor tell your mother?

Susan: That his heart was very weak now and they couldn’t really tell her, but he may live one to four months.

Carol: A week later you wrote that you were with your dad again and all seemed well. He was eating and drinking his Pepsi and watching TV, you wrote.  

Susan: Yes, I took pictures. I couldn’t believe it. He looked good too.

Carol: He as able to go home from the hospital then, but at the end of October he took a turn for the worse. Then you wrote on Facebook.

Susan on Facebook: Well my father fought a good fight but he won his case and left this earth at 1:35 pm with a smile on his face.  Thank you Lord for sparing him 88 years of which 52 I shared with him.

Carol: Was he alone when he died?

Susan: No. He was surrounded by his loving wife, his sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, and members of his church body.

Carol:  How had your older brother, preacher Willie Joe, summoned the nine siblings?

Susan: He sent us a text early the morning of his death that said: Good morning family. Hope life is serving you well. I give God thanks for a new day. If each one of daddy’s children will release him, he will rest. He needs to hear you say it is all right. That man is tired. He’s at the point he can’t do nothing for himself. Let him go. Daddy is tired. We can’t worry who doesn’t show up. We that do must assure him everything will be all right so he can rest. I don’t want to see my day suffer.

Carol: Did all nine children show up at the hospital? What was it like?

Susan: We were all there and it was very sad to see my father, the man that controlled us all, laying there and he patiently prayed and asked for healing for us and what we would be facing.

Carol: Then you posted on November 9, 2013, the day of his funeral.

Susan on Facebook: Dad, this is your day. What can I say? You left me here and you said you were tired and you have finished the race what God had for you. You told me I would be all right. You prepared me four months ago that you would be leaving on that 747 jet. I left work at 12:30 pm to see you again and talk to you one more time. At 1:30 pm you slipped. You passed with a smile and never looked back. You made peace and you loved the Lord who now has you.

Carol: What was that funeral like?

Susan: It was super, a slow home going celebration. It was unique in celebrating how he stood for the LORD. The church was full. My brother started to speak, but couldn’t finished because he was choked up. The grandsons were pallbearers.

Carol: I think you then posted this prayer on Facebook.

Susan on Facebook: I am missing my dad. LORD, please help my family to understand that it was time for him to depart from us, but most of all he left with a smile on his face. Thank you for the 88 years my dad lived and thank you for giving us him. Amen.

Carol:  I was praying for you all then and I am sure I posted on Facebook also. Facebook makes our world so small. How are your mom and the family doing now after his death?

Susan: Mom tries so hard to find things to keep her busy and we, as a family, are closer to her because of Papa Joe’s death. We want to be with each other more. 

Carol: What can other families learn from your story?

Susan: Stay with Jesus. He is the only One that can give you what you and your family needs when it’s time. Be strong and in control. Jesus is the answer.

Carol: Amen, sister! Thanks. It has been a pleasure to meet you and then interview you and follow your story. 

Saga Twenty

“.

"Don't think about the future.
Just be here now.

Don’t think about the past.
Just be here now.”


― Ram Dass

Life is so fleeting. My dear friend who prayed for my husband's Alzheimer's has now gone on to be with our LORD. She prayed every day from her wheel chair for us while going downhill from Muscular Dystrophy. I am challenged to increase my prayer because of her. My friend was not her disease, neither is my husband his Vascular Dementia and Alzhiemer’s.

I want my husband to feel in control as long as possible. Richard Taylor in Alzheimer’s from the Inside Out writes:

" I vaguely recall a time when lots of people were coming to me

and asking for information and my opinion concerning things

other than myself or my disease." (p. 203) 

So it was that I asked DH if we could attend a memorial service Tuesday night , November 29th, for this dear friend of over thirty years. He said yes. His opinion counts and I didn’t know that he would have said yes—but he did. I canceled four days of substituting which along with trip expenses would put our budget back, but well worth it. We dropped our dog off at the kennel.

Monday we drove over 500 miles to Daphne, Alabama, just west of Mobile. I had not slept well during the night and got up to write a six page eulogy for my friend and so hubby did a lot of the driving that first day.

My friend had also been my bridesmaid. Although we only lived near each other for two years, we wrote and called after that and visited when we could. We would have fun cleaning each other's homes. The years rolled on by. When MD came into her life we e-mailed maybe once a month. She would write “I pray for you every day” at the end of her e-mails. Her only complaint about the MD was that she didn't have the muscles to smile any more.

She was to get one of my unusual gifts for her 66th birthday—a binder of my favorite Scripture. I enlarged the font size to 18 for her binder so she could read easily and she e-mailed Oct. 12th, our last communication, “I don't think I need 18 point font. Maybe something halfway between. Looking forward to my b. d. gift.”  She had her husband contact me to thank me for the gift. She was admitted to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital because her cough was not responding to antibiotics.

I called her hospital room and her husband put the phone up to her ear. “It’s gonna work out,” I said to her. “Either you will be with Jesus or He will help you go through this.” She did give me a faint reply so I knew we were communicating and agreeing. She died the day before turning 66, with MD taking over the muscles in her lungs.

During the trip my husband asked many times where we were going. Then Tuesday morning we arrived in Louisiana, having driven over 200 miles to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, our destination on the second day. We checked into our second Microtel and I checked my e-mail for word on my eulogy from my friend’s pastor. It turns out that my departed friend had scripted her own memorial service and my eulogy was too long. The pastor’s editor was cutting it down!

The memorial service was wonderful. My friend lived well and died well. She and her husband even traveled abroad with the wheel chair. She was always e-mailing about her four young granddaughters whom I met at the memorial service. With fourteen pages of hand written notes on her own memorial service, the program proceeded. First there were slides of her life before and after MD while the Prelude included “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder”, “When We All Get to Heaven” and “How Great Thou Art”. The pastor read words from my friend, including jokes about heaven and Scripture. She had selected favorite hymns for us all to sing and a sermon he had preached in the past that she had him cut down to eight minutes by his staff editor who had edited me as well. I gave my eulogy as did others. The pastor read her “closing words” and then her “final closing words”. Unscripted: the pastor had us clap for her service which we did at the end.

Wednesday morning, the day after the memorial, in the spirit of my friend (live your life), my husband drove us from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. There was lots of traffic and it was stressful driving for DH. On the bucket list of my husband was the casino. The valet took our car and we decided we could have two hours in the place. He put $20 into a slot machine which he quickly lost. But an item on his “bucket list” had been checked off. We walked around and settled into a buffet for a brunch. Security guards with cages of money went by. We retrieved our car and I drove through the French Quarter letting my husband see the sights.

He had lots of questions on what state we were in and lots of comments that I didn’t make sense to him. What did make sense was to stay in our third Microtel in Marianna, FL. All the rooms are basically the same for an Alzheimer’s patient, and each hotel has a continental breakfast. Thursday morning frost was on the window of our car. We put the header on and waited until the windows cleared. Whenever it is cold in Florida, DH often quips “I think we should move to Florida!” It was best that I didn’t talk too much but just listen to him while I drove or he drove. Here is what he did say:

I will be so glad when I don’t drive anymore. I desire to be a passenger.

We picked up our dog and headed home. The next day I called State Farm Insurance and said we would just be one driver now.

I will miss my friend and will try to keep up

with the family and pray daily for them.

Saga Nineteen

THURSDAY. I reminded my husband that the driving test was tomorrow morning and he spend almost two hours reading the Florida driving manual. I was amazed he could still give attention to reading. He also pointed out that he doesn't have to drive anymore--that he is content to be driven around. His attitude about driving has certainly changed in the past year, and due to the totaling of one car with the crash last December, we have only one vehicle anyway. "Just do your best, honey," I pointed out. "What if I were in the hospital and you needed to drive to visit me?" So when we prayed Thursday night, we did just put the result of the driving test in the LORD's hands.

FRIDAY. Amazingly I believe my husband passed his driving test yesterday at the Memory Disorders Clinic at Morton Plant Mease Hospital in Clearwater. He did about the same on the written computer test as last year, and therefore needed to pass the physical driving test as he had last year. His only mistake, said the examiner for the physical driving test, was to not look over his shoulder at the blind spot when turning left. Later he remembered her comment and told me that then he would not be paying attention to the road if he had looked over his shoulder.

Because I am conscious of the precious time I have with DH and wanted to enjoy this "date", when we got to Clearwater for the 9:30 appointment, I used my time in the waiting room to research what we might do after the appointment. I had googled "things to do in Clearwater" and none of that was to pan out. Instead a headline in the Clearwater Beacon newspaper provided an opportunity. We would go see a movie produced in the area.

Clearwater, Florida

DOLPHIN TALE. The dolphin "Winter" is the star of the movie. We went to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium to see her, but it was raining and we decided to not spend the time and the money to see her. Instead we headed to the area of the Cinema Cafe where there was a 4:15 showing. With a little time on our hands, we went to Sam's Wholesale where DH sat in the food area while I stocked up on dog food and other non-perishable items I like to get there. Then back to Cinema Cafe for the showing. The tickets were only $5 for seniors and we paid at the end of the movie. We sat in a comfortable chair with a small round table. We ordered drinks and a pizza. Hubby had a Scotch and Water and I had coffee because I would drive home. I don't want to spoil the movie for you, but it packs a huge emotional punch. I cried and hubby could follow the plot.

SATURDAY--today. My Fundraising Goal for the Alzheimer's Walk Today was $150 and I raised $200.00. Thanks to all of you who contributed. Sally, a friend of hers, and I walked today in the rain. DH and Jake hung out at our home in the meanwhile. Because our husbands need things to do, we four went to Starbucks after the walk. I had not been to the Plant City one before because I guess I didn't feel the need to spend the time or spend the money. But it was relaxing to be there.

TO COME. Review of Dr. Newport's book. Consciously this week I cooked with coconut oil again. I found new ways to use it, where hubby had been bored with coconut oil in oatmeal for some time. Could it be that hubby passed the test due to the coconut oil?!

Our Normal Life So Far

DH passed the DriveABLE test as we learned last week. The written report which came yesterday said he

appeared cooperative and effortful during testing. . . . .The driving performance is compared against normal, healthy drivers who also drove a dual-brake car. . . . [Husband's] driving performance revealed no evidence that driving competence is outside the range of healthy, normal drivers. Driving cessation is NOT indicated. Reassessment is recommended if there are significant changes in medical status or function. The recommendation is based on criteria developed through the scientific comparison of medically impaired and normal, healthy drivers across a broad age range. Those criteria enable normal, healthy drivers of [my husband's] age to receive a passing score. The DriveABLE Road Evaluation has been demonstrated through research to be sensitive and fair for both urban and rural drivers.

Wednesday he had an appointment with his primary care physician and I also went to that appointment, booking myself unavailable to substitute that day. I gave her a copy of the report on DH's Mixed Dementia evaluation from the Byrd Institute. She was pleased with his Hematology and Chemistry report that she orders every three months. The doctor agreed to let him stop the Plavix, which we are out of after 90 days, in favor of regular aspirin as suggested by a helpful comment from an earlier post on July 14 of this year. (By the way a lot of people have visited that 7/14/10 post according to the site meter.)  I have him taking ECOTRIN 325 mg Safety Coated Enteric Aspirin now. This saves us a lot of money. She was also glad that we use bright lights now in the family room where DH is always watching a movie.

Wednesday we also ran into a couple and had lunch with them at Plant City's Fred's Market. This was delightful and really my husband was great at maintaining conversation. I gave them a copy of my book. We were so full from lunch that we skipped dinner and went to my Toastmasters meeting. After the meeting we went to a McDonalds for dinner to see if I could get closer to winning in their Monopoly game. No luck and DH doesn't really like McDonalds he said. I am over eating there also.

This morning my husband was interested in the calendar for his chores. Change air filter. Wash the car. Love that huge FlyLady calendar and he had me write those chores on them. He also took note that the lawn needs mowing with his riding lawn mower. He has been puttering away at weeding the past couple of weeks for which I am grateful. We have a lot of yard to maintain. Carpenter James built this pergola structure between the two back yards several years ago and we enjoy the climbing roses on it.

I need to learn the procedures to the lawn mower because one day I will be the one mowing it; hope to make a sheet in my FlyLady Control Journal for how to use that mower.

DriveABLE

We went to the MaDonna Ptak Center for Alzheimer's and Memory Loss/Memory Disorders Clinic at the Morton Plant Neuroscience Clinic in Clearwater yesterday. In the morning DH took the DriveABLE Road Evaluation test which was

not sufficient to resolve driver competency. The DriveABLE Road Evaluation is needed to determine driver competence.

We went to lunch at McDonald's so I could play their Monopoly Oct. 5--Nov. 1 game. Haven't won anything yet. Am I gambling? I don't like to gamble because the LORD has promised to supply our needs. We bought food that had those Monopoly properties attached to the packaging. I still need more properties to win. Anyone have Boardwalk, Pennyslvania Ave., Ventor, Vermont, Reading Railroad, or Mediterranean? I will trade you. Hard to watch nutrition by buying there, however--gambling with nutrition.

In the afternoon DH took his road test at the Suncoast Safety Council also in Clearwater. I believe he passed it, but you never know what the neurologist, Dr. Raj, will say. We have yet to meet him, but he is the professional who gave us the Mixed Dementia diagnosis (two kinds of dementia) at the USF Byrd Alzheimer's Research Institute. Don't you just love those names for hospitals and research centers!

Added October 18. DH got the word by phone at home and I got the word on my cell. Officially he passed and can drive! 

Thank you, Lord, and please protect him!

Feeling Normal

 “You can only perceive real beauty in a person

as they get older.” ~~ Anouk Aimee

I asked my husband if he enjoys retirement. He said yes. I love him so much. He has great integrity and character. He doesn't let things bother him that might bother me.  Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful husband.

I asked him if he knew he had dementia or Alzheimer's. He said he feels functionally normal. Are you in a fog? No. My husband is in denial. Early on when I started this blog I was in denial. I had blind faith that coconut oil would help. Yes it has helped as has his Alzheimer's medicine. He would be so much worse off it he had not had that medicine and oil according to the USF Byrd Alzheimer's Institute.

Every once in a while he asks me a question such as is he is 72. I say yes. See, I am not losing my memory, he retorts. I think this depends on the time of the day, and he possibly has Sundowner's Syndrome--but more on that later. He does not remember all the things I tell him verbally. If I write it down, he might not remember to read that note. Everyone forgets as he gets older--this is normal, he says.  

He wears that medical alert bracelet that has "memory" stamped on the other side of it--keeps it on in the shower, but remembers to take off his watch before his shower. His watch tells him the date--October 12 and the day of the week, Tuesday. The calendar tells him where I am and he crosses off the date when I come home. He takes his blood pressure regularly and keeps asking me what is normal. He records his blood pressure. He often makes the bed--his side and even mine.

We talk about his driving test tomorrow. I will sue if they don't let me drive, he says. I let him drive last night when we went to Lakeland to my publishers to pick up more books for the book signing in November. I had him drive this morning also--both times with me in the car. Like a great husband and companion he wants to be with me--doing anything.

  

DH  vacuums, cleans the carpet and mows the grass--all things he has done the ten years we have been married. He has his same humor. He blows the paper cover off the straw at me as he prepares to drink his ice tea. A year ago he made valuable suggestion on my book before it was published. He loves to watch old movies. He only reads to read a hymn and the last several months we sit down in church usually rather than stand when we sing the hymn. We hear Scripture read at home or in the car. He prays beautiful prayers, or the simple table grace prayer that I can recite from memory. Of course he feels normal. He has a loving wife and an affectionate dog and a roof over his head.

Rebellion. He apparently went down to Block Buster Video recently and bought some 99 cent movies that I added to his list of movies--not good choices, but he felt free to buy them with the little cash he carries in his wallet. Wasn't supposed to drive until we know the results of that test tomorrow and the note in his car says that. I feel for him. I let him drive last night and this morning with me in the car. I want him to feel normal--that he is OK. Don't we all want our loved ones to feel OK?!

I am so glad he is happy.

To be continued. . .

About five hours later. How I had looked forward to this afternoon!  Jake and DH were to play pool and chat while Sally and I went to the Alzheimer's support group and I was going to report on that here. However when Jake and Sally came over, suddenly I had been in our master bedroom barfing.  My blouse was wet, I was hot, and I continued to vomit. I had no presence of mind to call and cancel. They chatted for a while in the family room and took a rain check on our date.

About an hour later DH was instructed to bring my purse with my cell phone. I used my cell phone to get the number to the pet groomers so DH could call to see if  our dog was ready at the groomers. The front door closed as I heard DH say he was taking his car to get our dog. Soon he was back in the house looking for the global navigational device plugged into his computer. He found the address on the Garmin GNP, punched it in and went to rescue our dog. When they returned I found hubby trying to put his cell phone into the GNP chord by his computer. I reminded him that his cell phone recharger was in our bedroom and that "Miss Garmin" needed to be plugged in at his computer.

I am starting to feel normal.

My Husband's Driving

Yesterday on the Alzheimer's Reading Room Bob DeMarco posted "Driving with Alzheimer's Can Mean Death":

A new study conducted by Linda Hunt at the School of Occupational Therapy at Pacific University, Oregon indicates that driving when suffering from Alzheimer's can be dangerous. Of 207 drivers with Alzheimer's who went missing while driving, 32 died and 35 were found injured. Another 70 were not found at the time the data was analyzed. Pretty scarey stuff. . . . Drivers with dementia are estimated to be 2-8 times more likely to be involved in an automobile crash as unimpaired peers.

See the Alzheimer's Reading Room link under "Favorite Links" at the right. When DH has his test on October 13th, they will deal with this issue and I won't have to, thank God. Once I took DH's keys away from him and he rebelled. There is a sign on his steering wheel that he is not supposed to drive. He talks a lot about this issue now. He is reading a manual on driving in FL to try to ace the test.

The last two Sundays he has taken his car to our circular driveway ready for me to drive us to church in it--our tradition--his comfortable car on Sundays so it gets a spin. I hope that the neurologist at the Byrd Alzheimer's Institute lets my husband drive if I am in the car with him. Both of us will grieve if his license is taken away. I love his driving me. He even schools me when I am driving and distracted by my iPod.

Day After the Diagnosis

I was able to cry! I thought about how sweet and loving my husband is on the way home from substitute teaching today and an ocean of tears came--right in downtown Plant City--miles from that ocean. I put my glasses on when I came in the door so he wouldn't see I had been crying and gave him a big smile--so glad to see him.

I guess I had been hoping for Vascular Dementia instead of Alzheimer's, but not both. He had been helped by Namenda and Exelon and coconut oil, slowing down the progress of the disease which may have even started fifteen years ago according to Nancy! Certainly we are fortunate to have such a professional evaluation from that Alzheimer's Institute close by. I had thought that the first MRI in December of 2008 did not show Alzheimer's officially, so I had been hoping against hope all this time. Those scores only meant he learned to take those tests and raise his points from 22 to 25.

Thanks so much to you who have sent me your expressions of prayer and concern. One person I heard from is my Alabama brother! He and his wife are coming down this weekend! This is just what the doctor ordered for the caregiver. That brother and his wife have been there for me countless times in the past.

Yes, my husband did hear the diagnosis yesterday and he was told point blank that he can't drive. An appointment is now set for October 13th to assess his driving skills. He is mad about this. "Of course I can drive," he says. I reminded him about being sued for our home if he were in an accident because of his Mixed Dementias, and this reasoning didn't make sense to him. Usually he doesn't drive when I am gone anyway--just when we do things together.

12:45 Thursday AM.  I am up in the middle of the night not sleeping. I get his car key out of his jeans.

Husband Gets the Global Navigational System

Friday--GNS is programmed for hubby. When he leaves the house, he says "Okay, where am I going again?" He calls on the way and asks what is he doing?

"Practice run, sweetheart," I say.

He comes back to the house and we try it again. It works this time! He makes it to downtown Plant City and home again quite proud of himself. He loves this device. We call the lady who speaks on the GNS "Miss Garmin".

Monday, three days later. I will be gone all day and not able to media mail a book at the post office. I arrange for him to do this. He had forgotten when I called at noon. He is able to make it to the post office and back home. This time he only has to call my cell once.

Tuesday. The lawn repair shop calls while I am gone. It is complicated to get there and back. My sweetheart hitches up the trailer and uses "Miss Garmin" to go get it and return home. I call him during the day and he doesn't mention that he has retrieved the riding lawn mower. When I return home the front lawn has been mowed!

Driving

When my sweetheart drives, he often gets angry at other drivers. Demenia has made him especially impatient and I have had to adjust to his impatience. Sometimes he is impatient when he can't get the TV channel he wants or when I don't finish a sentence quickly or make sense to him. I have to think carefully when I talk with him. Sometimes he is insulted that I remind him of something. We are adjusting.

At some point he will need to stop driving. Here is a check list from the link below and I can answer yes to two on the list.

1. Needing more help with directions. Yes he does. I can remember near panic a year ago before he was officially diagnoised with dementia. Thanks to the cell phone I could help him.
2. Forgetting destinations or where the car was parked. Not long ago I had to meet him at work so we could find his car in the huge garage.
3. Having trouble making turns or being confused by traffic signals. Not so far.
4. Receiving citations for moving violations. I still feel save when he drives us both.
5. Putting dents in the car that can't be explained. Not so far.

He remembers to get gas, but that is about all. I have taken over normal maintenance of his car--the oil checks need to be every week because the car is old and that oil does go down. We have done a lot of preventative maintenance for his car including a new battery recentlly.
http://www.everydayhealth.com/alzheimers/alzheimers-disease-and-driving.aspx

The Lord Upholds!

I just have to write about how the Lord went before us yesterday. The Almighty is adequate and provides richly for our needs! Just like the e-mail that Newblogger sent me yesterday: “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.” Hebrews 1:3 He absolutely upheld us! Sandy’s prayers and e-mail also showed the Lord’s provision for me yesterday. And Tom providentially helped also. Here is how the day went.

My car wouldn’t start yesterday morning and my husband was already at his work. My neighbor drove me to the school where I was substituting. A new battery was needed. When I called my mechanic, he said that he didn’t have a battery for a 2006 Saturn—we would need to purchase a battery at the Saturn dealership. I got the Saturn service department on the phone and said my husband would be in to purchase a 2006 Saturn battery.

A task that would be no problem in the past for my husband became a tortured explanation by cell phone to direct him to the Saturn dealer after his work. Two wrong turns. A swearing husband. Not a routine trip for my husband who functions fine going to work, at work and coming home. Now I had to stay on my cell phone while directing him. Mind you I’m teaching and hoping silent students don’t hear the curse words of my husband at the other end of the cell phone and that they keep working on their tests.

Mission finally accomplished with the purchase of a battery. It would be too difficult to describe to him how he would get to the school where I was teaching and then he would have a wait in the cold. So I told him to just go home and find Google map directions to the school where I was teaching out on the kitchen counter. Successfully he got himself home—enough clues in his memory to do that without me.

Time for him to come pick me up. Students can listen while I patiently explain to my husband how to come to the school—the written directions just wouldn’t do. He gets to the school and doesn’t see me, calling me in the classroom. I tell him to park and wait for school to be dismissed.

Every torturous step needs to be described simply to him. (I once sent him in to the supermarket to buy two items and he called me to ask me what was the other item.)

After the dismissal bell I find him and we go home. He has been thoroughly upset by the stress of stepping out of his comfort zone while trying to be the gentleman and rescue his wife. He tells me he would not accompany me to Toastmasters last night—he had had enough for the day.

We get home and he prepares to change the battery. I knew I would be in for more swear words as he doesn’t do mechanical stuff much anymore and I never did. (That’s why we have AAA.)

Here is where the Lord again went before us. Tom called. He asked if he come by with a plumbing part for the kitchen. “Yes, Tom,” I said, “and would you mind very much installing a battery!” It was his pleasure to do that, he said.

At Toastmasters I am the Grammarian and choose the word for the day. I choose “uphold” from the verse that Newblogger sent to my e-mail.

Thank you, Lord, for again upholding us!