Random Thoughts

Buddy at the vet for the 2nd time in a week It's been kind of crazy around here lately. I guess I should have realized it would get that way before getting the puppy. How can one little pooch be as rambunctious as 101 Dalmatians? I think I've set a world record with the number of times I've said "potty, pee and poo" in one day. To make matters worse, we found out yesterday Buddy's got an intestinal thing going on.  Once we get that cleared up maybe the number of trips outside will be less frequent. I thought he was catching on. Running to me like the Purina Puppy Chow puppy, when he heard my kissing sounds. Loving the treats he gets for responding. Alas, now he's decided to do things in his own time and own way. This morning he actually turned his back on me to chew on bark as if to say, "yeah, yeah, I know it's potty time. I heard you the first time. I'll get to it when I'm ready." Perhaps we've bitten off more than we can ...

I woke up this morning well before Mary. As usual, my first stop was bathroom then on to kitchen for coffee. That made I was on the computer following my routine through the various e-mails that come in over night. Realizing it was 9:45 I went to wake up Mary and we both prepared to leave for the hospital. I went to the garage, opened the garage door and as I was walking around to open the door I realized I felt small. Shorter. As if I were in a fog. At the hospital, we went up to the women's center on the second floor and signed in. A nurse came to take us back so Mary could do the pre-op prep. Suddenly the nurse stopped and said I would have to stay in the waiting room, she would get me when it was OK to join Mary. I panicked, I felt smaller still but I did what I was told. Finally we were in the pre-op room together. Mary  handed me her rings (I shrank some more.) The Dr. came in, he answered questions, explained about the procedure and going to sleep. Then the surgeon lady ...

Part of my nanny job is to bathe Bella and get her ready for bed. [Picture trying to corral a wiggly, squiggly, naked little girl who suddenly has more energy than a box full of puppies and zip her into a one piece sleeping suit.] Since her crib was converted to a toddler bed, she can now jump into bed and burrough down in a corner that makes my back beg for mercy.  One night after the wrestling match was over, we had this conversation: M: Do you know you are beautiful? B: Yes M: Do you know you are smart? B: Yes M: Do you know you are brave? B: Yes M: Do you know you are wonderful? B: Yes M: Can you think of something else you are? B: I'm Bella. Yes, my little love, that's exactly what you are. You are Bella through and through. How lucky the world is to have you in it. _____ Last week Sweetie and I took one of the action steps recommended in the Together In This guide to ALZ. We are now in possession of legal documents that relay our wishes to our families an...

"Challenge is the pathway to engagement and progress in our lives. But not all challenges are created equal.  Some challenges make us feel alive, engaged, connected, and fulfilled. Others simply overwhelm us. Knowing the difference as you set bigger and bolder challenges for yourself is critical to your sanity, success and satisfaction." Brendon Burchard Right now I'm feeling overwhelmed by inertia. I'm not much in the mood for a challenge. Merry ME

Yesterday didn't start off so great.  Sweetie came stumbling into the bedroom room where I was folding clothes around noon. He stood in the doorway, staring blankly like he had no idea where he was or what he was needed to be doing. Of course I panicked. This ALZ stuff is so new to me that every time I see something not quite right, I'm sure we're about to fly down the slippery slope like skiers with no poles.  M: What's up? S: No answer. M: Are you okay? S: No answer. M: with raised (i.e. shrewish sounding) voice: What's going on? Sweetie finally shook his head and seemed to come back from wherever he had been. Later on, still not quite himself, Sweetie went out to put some kind of order in the stuff we'd earmarked for a garage sale a month ago.  He did this in 100 degree weather. By himself. Even tho the last time we'd discussed it, we'd agreed to make it a joint effort.  He said he had a plan, but his plan was nothing like my plan. I hrumpfed...

Perhaps the only thing better than an actual quilt that you can curl up under would be a picture of a quilt that you can curl up under, or see close up. Perhaps the only thing better than a pictures of a quilt would be a whole book of pictures. Even better than that would be receiving that book via snail mail from an Internet friend you've never met, but thought of you because she knows the subject hits very close to home. Many thanks to Diane Auser Stefan from Arkansas for knowing how much this book would mean to me. Alzheimer's Forgetting Piece by Piece is a collection of pictures and stories by 54 quilt makers who have been affected by the ALZ. The quilts were originally made for a traveling exhibit to "draw us close to a difficult subject so we can understand, become more compassionate and ultimately use our own talents to effect change."* "The idea for what would become the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative," writes, Ami Simms, founder of A...

In the Together in This Introductory Guide to Alzheimer's one of the first things on the To Do list - after safety but before medical - is to make sure our legal documents are in order. There are 4 must haves: Health Care Directive, Medical Power of Attorney, Financial Power of Attorney and Last Will and Testament. To prove to myself that I am capable of taking action - baby steps, not giant leaps - I called a recommended Elder Care lawyer on Monday. It just so happens he was hosting a brief seminar on estate planning on Tuesday so I said sign us up.  Anyone who knows me knows that I'd rather swim with sharks than sit through this kind of lecture.  I may have lost a few brain cells over the years, but I still consider myself about as smart as the Average Joe. Still when faced with a white erase board with words and dollar amounts written in various colors, separated by columns but hooked together by curving arrows, all my inner kindergartner can think of is recess....

"I'm Still Here" A New Philosophy of Alzheimer's Disease. This book arrived in today's mail. Paging through I found this statement by John Zeisel, Ph, D., the author. "The people living with Alzheimer's disease have inspired me to stay in this field. The way this illness affects the brain leaves most of them exceptionally perceptive, increasingly creative, and highly emotionally intelligent for years" So it appears there is a period of heightened brain activity for some years before the decline in abilities. This means the perceptions gleaned from certain TV shows and movies are inaccurate. This does not mean people with Alzheimer's don't have memory lapses or forget things, but those incidents are a smaller percentage than we might have been lead to believe. Rather than having one foot in the grave, and the other on a banana peel, I can look forward to a long time of heightened perception, increased creativity, and highly emotional in...

Last year I stopped attending  the church I've been going to off and on since I was a child. When I moved back in with my parents I got very involved spiritually and in the workings of said church. Over the years that enthusiasm waned, people I knew and loved died, the congregation diminished in size and I began to feel less and less at home. Which seems weird cause when I do go back it always feels like when you've moved away from home but go back for a visit. You know, those moments of walking in the back door and being welcomed with big hugs and a homecooked meal. But after awhile, when it's time to go, you are pretty sure that while it feels like home, it isn't home anymore.  I will always feel a call to sit in the pew that I shared with my mom and dad; a place where I once encountered the power of the Holy Spirit and the "communion of saints" but now feel only long gone memories. I stopped going because I felt more sadness than joy when I was there.   I...

A few days ago I asked Sweetie if he had a bucket list which started a whole bucket list conversation and stopped my writing in its tracks. I decided I was going to write about bucket lists in general then narrow it down to our personal lists. I started but never got past quotes from the Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman movie. Perhaps it's the fact that I don't have my own list that got in the way. Which came first - the list or the essay? _____ Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow,  it only saps today of its joy. Leo Buscaglia It is also possible that I stopped writing because I had begun the descent into stay-in-the-bed sadness. I'm a total ostrich when it comes to facing tough stuff. Even though I've learned over the years that depression is not my friend, it is my go-to defense mechanism. At least in the beginning. Close the curtains, unplug the phone, then give me clean sheets and a fluffy pillow, a cat curled up at my feet, a CD the soft, soothing sounds...

A few weeks ago, in a time that will forever be known as Before ALZ, Sweetie and I decided once and for all (or 24 hours) that selling, downsizing and moving was the right thing to do. A realtor friend helped us find some comparable prices for our house and parted with these words. "I'll come back when you've de-cluttered." She might have said, "send me a picture from the top of Mt. Everest." Don't get me wrong, we're not hoarders, even though one of us does like to pack things into closets in a style closer to Fibber McGee than Martha Stewart, and one of us likes to stack up things up in Jenga-like fashion. Woe to the person who wants something on the bottom of the pile.  My father used to complain (what's new!) about the way I covered every flat surface in the house with stuff.  It used to be that my mind was organized, even if my living space wasn't. I don't think I can say that anymore.  After the realtor left Sweetie and I went thr...

Before we got the ALZ diagnosis Sweetie and I were seriously contemplating a giant move. Somewhere we both fantasized about. Fantasies so real we could almost smell the mountain air and hear the birds singing.  My ancestors were pioneers that crossed the mountains from NC into TN. Some still live there. I'm pretty sure I've got Smoky Mountain genomes in my DNA. Some of the most peaceful moments in my life were spent in my father's retirement cabin. A part of me cries out to "go home." That's the fantasy. The reality is the roads are curvy. Thar's bars in them thar woods - and spiders and snakes. When you live in the woods there's no running to the Dairy Queen at 10pm. Hell, there may not even be a Dairy Queen or movie theater, or fabric store. Small town living is just that - small. Is that really what I/we want/need at this time in our lives? What about doctors, hospitals, nursing homes? There have only been a couple times in my life when I've...

Sweetie and I went to breakfast with this morning with some new, but quickly becoming close, friends. As we were deciding what we wanted to eat, Sweetie began to give a brief rundown of how he/we got from thinking he had some memory issues to the diagnosis of ALZ. He paused for a moment, trying to remember something, without thinking I jumped right in to finish the story. I didn't mean to talk over him, but that's exactly what I did. When our friends got up to order, I apologized to Sweetie and asked him to please stop me - in a nice way -  if I do it again. S: What's a nice way? Shut the f*#!k up? M. I was thinking of a kinder, gentler way. We need a code word. Looking up I noticed a sign advertising a special on white zinfandel wine. Zinfandel. Next time I interrupt, just say zinfandel, and I'll know to be quiet. S: How do you expect me to remember zinfandel? M: It'll take a little practice! Later on in another conversation, I heard Sweetie say zinfandel...

When something bad happens, you have three choices.  You can either let it define you,  destroy you,  or you can let it strengthen you. Maria I can hear the clinking of pills falling into their plastic holes, like horses being loaded into the starting gate at Pimlico. Across the hall Sweetie is filling his pill case for the week. Mostly I don't pay any attention. He takes care of his meds and I take care of mine. Except for ever-changing lists of meds neither one of us can even pronounce. Dammit. F*!#K! It wasn't the words but the frustration in his voice that startled me. What's wrong? I dropped the damn pills. I can't hold these little ones. Need some help? No. I can do it. A few minutes later, job completed, my love came into the room with tears in his eyes. Are you crying? I'm just so damn frustrated, he says as he plops his head down on my tummy like a pillow - his go to comfort spot. From this position I can rub/scratch his head, should...

As I said in my last post, it's hard to be grateful when a big pile of poopoo is dumped into your life. While I was waiting at a rather long red light this afternoon, I pondered that idea a little bit. What is poopoo, I asked myself, but fertilizer? And what do you do with fertilizer? You grow things! Sweetie tells the story of the time he bought 2 rabbits for his son. He built a rabbit hutch in the back yard for them. It wasn't long before he noticed that the grass growing under the hutch was thick and green. I believe he contemplated a whole herd of rabbits.  Maybe one day we'll write a book about our Alzheimer's journey. We'll call it The Grass is Always Greener Under the Rabbit Hutch, and hope there's as much humor in it as Erma Bombeck put in her book of a similar title. The really cool thing is it's already happening. The fertilizer is already making things look better. I told some friends today about Sweetie's diagnosis. Almost immediately my in...

I remember back in the 50's or 60's a song about I'm The One, a native son or something. Mary said I am the 1 in 9 who has ALZ. That's the connection. Gotta go to You Tube and look it up. I think it was a Bobbie Darin Song. WOW! About a year ago Mary and I went in to talk with my primary Doc. I showed him a list of symptoms for ALZ. and stated I had every one of them. He said they were the same symptoms for sleep apnea. So we got another C-PaP machine and tried it for a couple months YUK! Set that aside and went to a Neurologist who gave me some cognitive tests in his office and thought it was great I answered 30 out of 30 memory questions. Over the next few months I was in and out of Dr's. offices, tested, advised and had to fight with the insurance company over CAT scans PET scans and such. 3 months ago I had a CAT scan of my brain. Two days ago I was told the scan showed my brain had lost mass on both sides, an indicator of ALZ. Another lobe on the back of my br...

I went to google to find a quote to start off this post - Inspirational Alzheimer's quotes. I scrolled through a few pages of quotes about Alzheimer's Disease, but none of them felt inspirational. Seriously? I don't think Alheimer's Disease and Inspirational quite go together. Perhaps because I'm still a bit numb. My whole body is asleep, but that prickly, tingly burning feeling is rocketing around my nervous system like a pin ball on tilt. (I think that's a mixed metaphor but you get the picture, right?) Alzheimer's Disease. According to Alzheimer's.net  : 1 in 9 Americans over 65 has Alzheimer's.  On Tuesday we found out that my Sweetie is the one. Alzheimer's Disease. Like cancer, car accidents, rape, serial killers, or a bunch of other things, something that happens to other people, not you, or me, as the case may be. Only it does. It wasn't a great surprise. Sweetie knew there's been something off for nearly a year. Bu...