The many faces of dementia

So how does it happen. We have a great day and then along comes today where he has spent the entire afternoon looking for his passport because he will need it when he crosses over the border into Canada. No amount of reassurance that he is in fact in Canada and in his own home will change his viewpoint. He is adamant that he has to get back and he has had problems at the border before ( that part is true. He used to forget to take his passport when he was travelling ). This morning at church he played the hymns beautifully but then looked at me after the service and asked where Barbi was.

They say God gives you grace to meet the challenges of life but today I feel graceless.

Amid a crowd of stars

Sometimes my husband astounds me. Because I have had a break and am feeling a lot more upbeat, I decided today we would read some poetry first W.B. Yeats " When you are old and sitting by the fire "  Gone though much of his memory may be, he cogently explained why he thought bending low would be better than the words bending down which Yeats used. He then suggested we compare it to Shakepeare's sonnet When forty winters shall beseige thy brow for similiarities both in thought and composition. It made for a delightful breakfast and will keep me going for the rest of the day.

The pleasure of little things

Dealing with dementia on a daily basis can often be depressing but it doesn't take much to lift one's spirits. Today I looked out in my backyard and saw a pair of iridescent blue birds on one of the feeders. They were so beautiful and then a lovely heron flew overhead. Such reminders of the beauty to be found take one out of a grey world into one of sunshine even if only for a few moments.

Time Lapse

I realized with a shock that it had been over two weeks since I last posted anything. Suffice it to say that I have been busy. I had a weekend away in Montreal with my sister and it is amazing how three days can seem like a week when you are no longer focusing in on the needs of one person. I think he probably needed a break from me as well. After that I was busy with a choir concert at my church. This is the place of sanity in my otherwise disturbed life. Here I can lose myself in the beauty of the music and be at peace in my soul. Without it I couldn't have come this far.

Respite

This weekend I went away for two days to Montreal and while the trip was wonderful it does make you aware of how tired you actually are. In someways a better rest would be to place my husband in respite for a week and have an uneventful week at home. It seems to me the first little while that you are missing is the hardest. You need to find some way to make those first few hours bearable and I think Skyping might be the answer if the respite home has Internet. If he can see me he thinks I am there. While I was gone his son looked after him but I think it is very difficult for him to see his father in this state and so part of him is in denial. The usual caregiver does not have that luxury.