I'm not sure what is happening with me. I can't quit crying and there is really nothing new happening here. My DH is his usual illogical, argumentative self. I try to reason, but I know it does no good. He just spend $240 for shelving for the garage to hold leftover scraps of wood that probably cost less that $240. He says he might need it to build something someday and that it doesn't make sense to replace it. To me, it makes sense to toss the wood and buy whatever he needs if he does build something. I doubt he will build whatever he's thinking of, and if he does new wood will cost less than $240. Add to that, that when he came home with the shelves, he backed his truck into the new garage door we bought for about $2000 a couple of months ago and made a dent in the door (I didn't even check his junky old truck for dents). There there's the fact that I had to explain that shelving that was 48" w X 72" h X 16" d did not have shelves that were 4 feet by 8 feet. Aargh.
If I say anything, I get yelled at and told how unreasonable I am and that I bitch about everything. Last week he was going to call a divorce lawyer. Sometimes I wish he would.
Janet-I am sorry for your situation. I have been there. A very large overloaded shelf in our front closet fell down. Husband was no longer permitted to drive (another long, sad story). He insisted on going to Home Depot to get stuff to make the repair rather than wait for SIL to help. I had to drop what I was doing and drive him to the store. I could see that while he was determined he was also very confused. Rather than comfront the issue in the store I let him wander with his cart amassing who knows what. I shadowed him throughout the store giving him some autonomy but also watching that he didn't get into trouble. I knew he woluld not be able to handle his credit card so I snuck ahead and gave a very understanding cashier a heads up. I vowed to myself after that that I would have to act like the adult and call the shots. It was not pretty.
My DH's hobby (before AD) was woodworking - made kids rocking horses and other things. After DX I convinced him to sell all of his power tools - no problem- he did. But he would not get rid of all the wood he had accumulated. Finally almost two years ago, I told him the city was having a free trash pickup - of anything - during a certain week (they were); so suggested we clean out the garage while it would be picked up. He agreed - it was funny because he had no problem throwing away all that old wood that no one could use! And old clock parts he had kept for years as he used to work on clocks. Now he is so proud of his "clean" garage!
Jean, I am so sorry for your situation and I really have no advice but to keep trying. Here's a bunch of hugs for you today anyway (((((((())))))))))))
Thanks, bluedaze. My husband isn't driving much. If we go somewhere together in the car, I drive. According to him, it's because I bitch so much he can't concentrate, so I might as well drive. I've never driven the truck, but I think I'm going to have to start for when he thinks he needs to buy big stuff. He contends I don't want him to drive, and I'm trying to control him. Of course I am. I really want to go to Menard's three times a day like he does! I already go when he's getting something small, but I have to convince him I want to look at something there.
Vickie, my husband "needed" the shelving because he was "cleaning" the garage. He's been working for three days and hasn't thrown out anything yet - just added shelves.
How do you get through all of this? I'm really in a foul mood. When I read about husbands and wives who sleep all the time, it sounds good!
Janet, Well, there has been a lot of activity on driving threads, so make sure you read those. Yes, the argumentative DH. I have one also. And, it is ALL my fault. And there is always a "reason" in their minds. I'm the one who went for guardianship due to online scam and the potential for money loss. Others weren't so lucky and discovered money missing later.
Medications can help with the anger. Is he on any meds for that? Some of it you just have to ignore and remind yourself you are doing what you have to do to keep him safe, whether he likes it or not.
You'll have to figure out when you have to take over control (be it driving, money, spending, power tools, etc.). Know he won't like it. Know he won't forget about it. You just have to do it before he gets hurt or someone else does.
Not that it's any real comfort, but I have days like yours sometimes, Janet. Fortunately, my hb is getting to the point he doesn't want to do much of anything. BUT about 45' ago, he asked if there was something he could do outside. "Yes, you can weedwhack by the flower bed in front." "What? Where"? We live on the site of an old one-room school, and the pump is still in front by the sidewalk and step to the long-gone building. I said, "Whack the weeds by the pump in front." "What pump"? No weed whacking, but shortly I heard the walk-behind lawn mower; so I went out and said George, our neighbor, is going to mow for us later this afternoon. He threw up his hands, made a couple more swipes and put the mower away. I'd told him this morning George was going to mow. Then he came to the computer room and said, "you're going to have to give me more direction. I don't know what to do anymore." He said it in a calm, sort of pitiful voice; and I feel sorry for him. So, he's admitted it; now it's up to me to act w/understanding instead of expecting more because in general, simple talk he does okay.
He's admitted it for today, Zibby; he may have forgotten it tomorrow.. My husband says he has holes in his head, and that seems to be a fairly accurate understanding.
all i can add janet is get some scripts to help you get thru this phase of the disease. be it for you or for him! i started late with the meds and it cost my sanity bigtime early on. if i had known how much better it would be with medications i would have insisted earlier to get him on something. my ah-ha moment was in the ER he had a dread UTI and coming off the bed and pulling iv's and catheters out as soon as they were in. ranting to go home. my 'best new friend' during that stay was a pill named ATIVAN! haha. i told the ER dr i am not leaving without a script for those pills. he smiled the look that he knew exactly what i meant. things got better after that. you do what you do to stay sane thru it all. in the end stages now go figure i have DH on no mind-meds or AD meds period. none. and hes as sweet as a lamb. i hope it happens to everyone later stages they become much easier to care for. divvi
Janet, I signed on to start a thread titled "is anyone else experiencing a full-moon day." and then I read yours and boy does it fit. The real full-moom week went really well because we were in the mountains away from the phone, mail and visitors, noise, TV, etc. This all started over the last two or three days. More confusion. Had trouble with anger and didn't help me dig potatoes one night. Then next night, got mad at me for something that I had told him or didn't tell him. As usual, I had lied to him he told me. Then yesterday, his mother asked him to hang a new ceiling fan in her kitchen. They spent all day finding it and drove to the next town to finally get it. He called son last night and asked him if he could help him at grandma's house in afternoon replacing outside carpet on cement steps. In morning, he was going to hang the new fan. I got a call at work at 11:00 a.m. that he was back home with the new fan because he couldn't concentrate at parents' house, too noisy. So he brought it back to our house to put together. He was having problems figuring it out. I assured him that at noon, I would come home and help him. When I left him at 1:00, it was pretty much put together and he could go back and hang it. I got a call from home at 3:00 that he was still there. I asked why and was told that he still didn't know how to put it together. I told him that I had it pretty much ready for him when I left and wondered what the problem was. He said that there were parts that he didn't know where they went. I told him that when I got home at 5:00 that we could take it over and hang it. He said that since it was an all-day job that we would do it tomorrow which happens to be his birthday 55 and I was going to take him and 2 pups for an all-day mountain ride.
Then he calls back to give me problems about the bank statement that arrived today. Then he says, again, that he wants to sell the house next door that we own and that son lives in because son was two days late with the house payment. This is going on and on just like a couple of months ago. It just puts my guts in a knot. I sure don't want to go home tonight but I don't see that I have a choice. After I get this fan hung, I am going to do my best to encourage everyone (his mom) to not ask him to do any technical part type work for her. She is in big time denial about his problem.
He is also showing signs of being upset with daughter for not spending his birthday with him and going camping with her family-3 kids instead. She didn't invite us and he wouldn't have gone anyway. He is saying that they must be going with her in-laws instead. (He happens to really like them by the way.) It is just all so insane.
I sure don't like having to deal with these kinds of things.
Boy, the week must have been crazy for a bunch of us...my DH started by telling me his cordless screw gun had died, and he needed a new one for the work he is doing. So after researching, I found one cheaper than the one he wanted to buy in the store. I went over the specs for the thing, which was quite expensive, ordered it, and then a day later, he said Oh, can you change that order? I want the bigger one....well, it was on a one day shipping deal so I told him we'd have to wait till it came and then send it back. The bigger one was 100 dollars more, and I was hoping that he would decide to like it...NOT! So, I sent it back, ordered the new one, paid to ship the old one back, and paid to have the other one shipped. We have been notified by the doc that they are suggesting he doesn't drive, and are sending a report to DMV, so our conversations have been about how we will do things when he can't drive. Last night, our neighbor came and DH told me he wanted to buy his backhoe for 5,000! Then today he told me he needed a new truck! I said now why would we do that? What if they take your license, and he said oh, I was thinking of you, that way you could drive a new truck! RIGHT! But your forgetting we are poor folk! :-) DH likes to be the "BOSS", and too thinks I'm awful. But like others, thank goodness for drugs! My doc gives me a RX for Xanax, and if I have to I slip him one to calm him down, he can get pretty aggressive. It's never easy, but guess we just have to do what we have to do to survive. Janet, just know that he really doesn't mean what he says, you are not what he says, and try to ignore the ugliness, and just move on.
Oh Janet, I feel for you, with you. So many times I've been there and still go there. Xanax really helps calm me and allow me to think if I must, but doesn't do a lot for the sadness or crying. The best thing for me is usually to try to go with the sadness and crying and comfort myself by wrapping up in a blanket,watching mindless t.v., or spending time in my sleeping porch listening to the sounds of the tree frogs or birds. Fighting the sadness just wore me out and for me took longer than just going with it.
Janet, my DH "collects" things and please don't anyone tell him that they are having a garage sale!!!!! His hobby is working with wire figures and he likes to buy coiled up wire and then he wants to straighten the wire and on and on and on. He never does anything with what he did, he just wants to do it. Since we have moved into our apartment I am paying for a storage shed full of...I don't know. I know it makes him happy but it drives me crazy because he is forever wanting to bring his stuff to the apartment. Noooooooooooo! Sometimes I think "Why can't he be like so and so's husband. I know that I shouldn't do that and it only makes me feel bad and sad and then cry. I think terry is right. It is better to just give in to the feeling of crying because sometimes it actually helps.
We belong to a country club (country being the operative word). We meet friends there every Friday night. My DH used to fix a lot of things for them so they wouldn't have to pay to get them fixed. Those days are long gone, but he still keeps telling them, "oh, I will fix that." He has told them he will replace a dimmer switch on a light, replace a light in a clock, replace outdoor security lights that would require he get on a tall ladder. As soon as we leave there, it is forgotten. A couple of people last night said, oh I thought Buzz was going to fix that dimmer switch. I told them to let everything he offers to do go in one ear and out the other. They will get the message eventually. About 2 weeks ago, it took him 2 hours to tighten a towel hook in our bathroom. Two years ago, he could have done it in 5 minutes with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back. He was always the "fix it guy" in the family who fixed everything for everyone. Those days are long gone, but he still "thinks" he can do it.
Thanks everyone for your support. In some odd way, it helps to know others have been through the same sort of thing. I guess it's true that "misery loves company." Things seem better today, probably because I'm ignoring whatever is going on in the garage. Maybe I should go check, but I'm not sure I want to know.
Deb, there was a thread some time ago on hoarding. My husband keeps everything; it's not just wood. We have coffee cans, peanut jars, rubber bands from newspapers, twist ties from bread packages, screws, nails, used empty file folders and on and on and on. I did get rid of the baby food jars when our sons were in their 20s by telling him the church's pre-school needed them!
Reading this I guess I'm lucky that DH (who was never good at fixing stuff) has decided he can't work any kind of apparatus anymore. Not even the TV remote: he'll WILL turn it on or off but will not change channels. He won't make coffee or toast, use the microwave or dryer, ect ect. He has always enjoyed being in charge of the remote gate opener, but this week he's been trying to give it to me. I haven't accepted it yet, but since he keeps punching it more than once so that the gate can't decide whether to open or close, I may have to do so soon!
I helped DH install the ceiling fan for his mother. I went home after work on Friday and the two parts that had him confused were just covers or keepers and not needed for the installation. We went back over and it took about one hour but we got it in. As for DH being mad at son. That blew over as it always does. This weekend, Son finished installing the outdoor carpet at grandma's and also went to the dump for her and us. I took DH for the ride in the mountains for his birthday on Saturday - 56 not 55 as I mentioned before. today DH helped a team install trusses on a friend's new house. Tomorrow and rest of week, finish the building for the family member and do more work at his friend's new house. Still missing very recent conversations and not very safe with anything when he is overly tired.
On Sunday, he was very special and didn't have too many problems. Even helped me dig 100 lbs or so of potatoes and didn't even get angery about it.
It really was a full-moon type week last week. I sure can't believe it. I really don't like having my emotions pulled and proded so much. It hurts my heart.
Mine doesn't do anything either, Jeannette. He bangs on the table when he's mad at the TV. He does know how to turn it off (not on, as far as I can tell). Used to use the microwave; his job was always unloading the dishwasher. Now he just sits.
And sits, and sits, and sits. I was trying to think of one thing he can still do and all I came up with is he can still eat. He tried putting on a shirt and had his head and both arms through the neck hole. Have you ever seen a man trying to put on his under wear and have both legs through the same hole and then pull them up to his waist. Not a pretty sight...wasn't easy to take off either. He would die if he knew some of the things he does. And I am a bad wife telling about it but maybe someone can appreciate where they right now and not sweat the small stuff. Nobody promised us a rose garden but oh, how I would love one.
Oh, yes, I've seen that, Bama. "Okay, here is your tee shirt. Pop, there goes your head. Okay, this arm through this hole. Now that arm through THIS hole. That's good, you're pulling it down over your back. Okay. Now lift up this leg. On goes the whitie. Now the other leg. Good. Pull it up. Good. Okay, Now turn around and put on your slippers. Good. Here's your walker, I'll see you in the bedroom. ... Come in HERE dear, don't walk down the hall. Come to your room. Okay. Leave the walker by the window and walk on the bed with your little piggy feet. Sit down. Right. Now,put your feet on the bed. Here, one sock is started. That's right, pull. NOw put the other leg up and drain it. Good, you counted to 100. Now here's the stocking. You pull. (5 pulls later) Okay. Sock on that leg now. Here we go. Now trousers. Point your toes, that's right. Okay, legs overboard. Pull up the trousers. STAND UP and pull up the trousers. Okay. Left foot in left shoe. Right foot in right shoe. I'll tie them. Now your shirt. That's right, hands in... " I think I could make a recording of the words...
briegull, sounds just like when we were helping our toddlers get dressed, doesn't it? My DH is not to that stage yet but one of our friends is so I know exactly what you're talking about.
More often than not DH either puts the tee shirt on backwards or inside out. And now they are printing the labels inside instead of sewing them on so that confuses him more. Rarely zips up after using the toilet, but I am grateful that he can still use the toilet by himself. I was reminded the other day that when my son was a toddler (he is 45 now) he would call me to button his shirt and I would say "okay I'll be right there" but would drag my feet until he got tired of waiting and walked out with the shirt all buttoned up by himself. Wish that would work with DH. This disease really makes the words "2nd childhood" a reality, doesn't it? And I thought they only gave children to young people because they had the energy to handle them. Little did I know what life had in store for my "golden years."
At each step along this jouney, I have learned to be grateful for what my husband could still do. He can no longer do any of the activities associated with daily living (no dressing himself, toileting, showering or feeding himself). He no longer talks all that often most of the time he is silent. The only thing he can still do for himself is to propel himself along in his wheelchair. I can see this is now declining, at least he can still kiss me and there is some sort of recognition. Some day, those too may stop. Not sure what I will be grateful for then.