Coming in late to the conversation, Will say I start every morning with three pieces of dark chocolate with almonds and a cup of coffee. That is my breakfast.
I am having trouble with keeping motivated. I am stalled right now. Youngest DD is in the finial stages of wedding planning and it is starting to hit home that she is moving out. I am both happy for her and sad for me. Older DD moved last month and I did help her for a week unpacking and will go again next month to set up the baby's room. The little guy is due in late Aug.
I did hurt my foot the end of May and it is just now starting to get better. That has slowed me down so much.
When I read what others are going through it just breaks my heart. So much struggle and sadness. Also a dear friend of mine, her mother is in her last weeks and it is just a matter of time now. It brings back all the pain of losing DH. And there is nothing I can do to help right now.
So many mixed feelings, sorting them all out is hard. Thanks for listening. Please know that you all are always in my heart and prayers. (((Hugs)))
Went out for dinner with BQD and her friend last night. Two hours went by like a few minutes. It was a really good evening and it was a real pleasure. We ate in an old inn in a tiny town that had a musician playing and singing and I got a text this morning saying they had a good time too.
I drove this morning for hours and was many miles up north by the time the sun came up. It's a lush area I live in with many working farms of which quite a few are mennonite and almost all had signs out selling eggs or honey or something. I was in the town I planned on at exactly 6:30 am and like that scene in As Good As It Gets, the bakery was just opening up. I've been here before with Dianne when they opened and there's always a half dozen people waiting for the door to open.
These guys make honey buns to die for. Six inches wide and an inch or so high covered lightly in a sugary glaze. I really don't like spongy donuts and these are often done perfectly. You have to chew them because the buns are actually baked properly. I bought four of them and a blueberry crumble loaf and something called Chow Chow which looks like a vegetable relish of some kind. I'm looking for something when I bake the 2.2 pound Tortierre pie I bought a few weeks ago.
The problem with living alone is finding some combination of switches and leftovers that work. Like making a small roast and then making enough gravy to have hot beef sandwiches with the leftovers the next day. That one works for me. It's hard to find the motivation constantly to make it half way interesting. I often sit there at 5 or 6 wondering what I'm going to do tonight realizing I have to eat something and I've learned to have a variety of easy stuff frozen and in cans.
I think one of the central underlying issues about caregiving and spouses is that we stay healthy enough where our energy and enthusiasm levels are going to be all over the map. At least mine were terrible and still aren't good. But I think food is one of the easier and available targets where we can do something that helps us both in treats and nutrition. Forget the weight is my advise. We have enough to face.
My mouth is watering - those honey buns sound delicious - my favorite! Happy you had a visit with BDQ and friend.
Food is my biggest problem now. I tried to cook for just me, then couldn't eat it. So, now, I just go out whenever I'm ready to eat. Interesting experience the other night. At dinner I noticed a couple adjacent to me who kept looking and staring at me. When they finished they came to my table and the gentleman apologized to me for staring but said his wife's Mother had died 11-24-13, and I look just like her! I told them it was fine and that DH had died on the same date! We had a brief discussion and then they told me they had taken care of my check! I thanked them and said I would pass it on. There are some good people out there.
I to have problems cooking for one or two if DD is home. And most times she is not. I have found that I hate the smell of cooking food in the house. I don't anywhere else. I don't know why. I am getting better with this, but still am bothered by it. I use to love to cook, now not so much.
Vickie* That was an interesting story. Thanks for sharing. Small world as they say.
Yes there are. Although those youngsters sound like they haven't gotten over it.
I've eaten once a day most days for many years now. That means I solve the eating issue only once. Almost everybody I tell this to protests that that's not healthy. I'll tell you what's healthy about cooking. My collection of battered frying pans and by battered I mean smashing the frying pan so hard repeatedly that it's unusable. My steel sink stands up to this well but the counter not so much. You don't want to know what happens to the food when I do use frying pans as drumsticks because...I...HAVE...HAD IT.
Where was I? Oh yes, attention spans. My neighbour doesn't ask about the coffee filter forest anymore. He doesn't compost and I do. So i have the little cat food tins washed on my counter and balanced on each tin is a used coffee filter full of grounds. "I have to ask" he said the first time. It's simple. If I throw the wet coffee out it soaks through the compost bag where we have a green bin garbage pickup for compost. If I let them sit on the tins they dry out in a couple of days and some dried out coffee filters make a great base to throw the organics on top of that can make a mess in the summer.
So, the zen of eating for one has nothing to do with how strange any of us actually are (where we aren't of course just ask us) or what moods the stumps of previously vital humans are going through. Mothers are a great example of this. Some mothers wave encouragingly as the children leave the house, some resist that children grow up like screaming banshees. They don't actually scream because the meaning in life they want is walking out the door which is a huge success on the part of any parents that the bird flys on it's own.
I get that parents rarely stop worrying about how their adult children are doing but I never miss the opportunity to point out that when their own parents were pointedly telling them what they were thinking was wrong - they ignored them just as their own children are doing now. When people point out to me I don't have children so don't understand I point out that you don't have to commit murder to understand murder because it's not rocket science.
There is a sea of people who cannot transition when they don't want the transition and in that sea of people every one of them is transitioning in other ways at the same time and are fine with those because those they want.
I've paused here for some time thinking about Vickie's son. I like Vickie and I don't want to hurt anyone. Please understand that my subject matter isn't bopping around on people's hurt. It's getting a jammed window to open for anyone at any point and change has a chance when we have the idea from within - not when someone says the things we compose verbatum ourselves.
My axiom is that alzheimers/dementia transforms us and within that scale of transformation the buttons and levers we have developed to that point may not be what's required. I believe that for most lives that will be at least partially true.
Look at those who transform in what we might call positive ways. Joisey Guy is the latest example. Someone here on this board answered him and both moved with the sea change. They all leap whole where I don't mean the word leap in any negative way but to describe the difference between someone thinking of getting up and someone who gets out of the chair and changes things and likes it now.
If we want interaction people are everywhere. Look out your window and you will see them. It's our own beliefs about our experiences that eventually will transform us to what we become where for some time (as I keep saying) the clinical damages of being a dementia spouse are both real and powerful and a different soup for each of us.
I pointed out to BQD that I'm sure no one believes me that I'm feeling good overall about my life and she answered that she felt she could tell that I was different from how I 'sound' these days. Her friend kept up and we all talked together but BQD and I were on a different connection level even though we'd just met. She'll be back in a few days and can comment herself if she likes. I would describe it as immediately genuine with the trivialities unnecessary. I noticed that in my long conversation with Amber too.
I'm in my underwear typing this. I have my feet up on the table and am smoking. Even though I'm keeping things much cleaner than before I still have the frying pans from three days ago on the stove rinsed but not cleaned. My beat up vacumn cleaner is in the hall because tripping over it is the only way I will vacumn. I listen to loud music exactly when the mood strikes. I leave my laundry out in piles because between bedsheets. towels, and clothes I can't get them all in the laundry hamper and I'm not doing little loads. I have out of the way piles for them. I leave all the windows open and sleep fine with the light on. I'm just beginning to understand I'm just at the beginning of understanding myself single and how I want things so my interest in compromising frankly anything whatsoever in my world is less than zero.
The day comes where I'm not dominated by what my parents did or didn't do on a certain day or what I was afraid of as a child or the fact that I'm entering the unknown and I move out and start my life on my own. I've read my own journals and I know I'm a liar. Re-reading through each day was shocking frankly because even though it's recognizable - nothing was the kodachrome glossed version I created. The truth hasn't changed one bit any time.
Whether childhood or jobs or friendships or family or marriage or sports - I never knew what I was doing but I was willing anyway. The real truth isn't that I'm an alien now and the real truth is that these losses in time are faced by absolutely everyone. Ours is quite cruel it's true. But nothing otherworldly has happened. I face the unknown as things transition towards a certain end.
My sister clings to the boxes of our mothers things and I do not but I still love both of them. Dianne among other loved ones is one of those taken earlier in life. We went through that together. She isn't here anymore which she would be the first to point out and I agree because she's "in my pocket" and always will be.
But I know the answer to whether the glass is half empty or half full. It's both. Few people answer the obvious where the obvious is that I am a rich man just as soon as I can get through the terrible tortures that Alzheimer's dishes out. No one cares that I laid that goal out with my first few posts here years ago except me. No one cares that I do raise my arms like Rocky at times except me. No one cares that I come out a better and stronger man except me. All things are as they should be. The beast is dead because even though it took years I killed it. My wife's death will not diminish our relationship, love, or accomplishments together where without consultation with me it is the story and therefore was always the story and always will be the story.
BQD is going to make it too. We spent no time on how sorry we were. We were looking for answers. I got the same vibes with Amber some months ago. Not just bowling pins. Not just survivors. Living in the unknown. Same as always everywhere by everybody.
I'm not a widower. I'm not married. I'm not single. I'm here. That took a long time to sink in that while I was looking out the window wondering how I might ever have a life again I was having that life already and spending it looking out the window.
The hardships of alzheimers are both more real than many accept and more powerful than many realize. Realizing that would mean you can see yourself in a detached manner going through it but understood it isn't the permanent you. You have to be a little crazy to think that way. I know.
It is early a.m. here and the honey buns sound so wonderful -- I can even smell that cinnamon! I have found and easy meal for me is the frozen veggies packed just for one. That's the brand name even. I bake a pan of chicken tenders all at once put them in the frig then when I feel hungry there I have a meal in a minute with a few tenders and a veggie. Sometimes I fix a small salad or have cottage cheese with a diced fruit. Easy that's for me. I never really enjoyed cooking but of course did keep my family fed - my grown kids don't look now like they suffered from lack of food!! Vickie - love that story. my former pastor would have called that serendipity.
Your description of "the stumps of previously vital humans" really struck me, because most days I feel like I am just the remnant of a person—at about the same level of energy and use as the coffee grounds left out to dry before being put in the compost pile.
But then I thought about our tree. We had a tree in our front yard that got damaged by a storm. About a third of the tree broke off. It looked pretty strange, really. Then along came another storm, and about another third of the tree broke off. We could see the handwriting on the wall, as far as the tree went, so before the next storm, DH went out and cut the tree down. He ran out of energy when he had about a three or four foot stump left sticking out of the ground. He was going to cut it down to the ground later, but later never came. So we had this ugly stump in the front yard.
Well, the strangest thing happened. The tree started to grow. Not just spindly little green shoots, but a real, honest to goodness tree. Slowly it got branches. We went through a terrible drought, but the tree did fine, because it had the deep roots of a much larger tree, so it could pull water from much farther down in the ground. Other trees in the neighborhood died, but not that one.
Eventually we had to move away, but before that, the tree had grown taller than the house. Unless you looked really closely and saw the scar where the tree had been cut down, you would never know that anything had happened to it.
I can only hope that caregivers can grow again, too. As a caregiver, I feel like parts of me have been broken off in a storm, and sometimes even like I have been chopped down to just a stump. But maybe I can think about that tree—that should have died years ago—and think there is the possibility of growth. Or re-growth. I hope that for all of us.
Wolf---You said " The hardships of alzheimers are both more real than many accept and more powerful than many realize. Realizing that would mean you can see yourself in a detached manner going through it but understood it isn't the permanent you. You have to be a little crazy to think that way. I know. "
If you'll remember, when my DH passed away, I said, "Ron's gone and I'm okay." Many didn't "get" that. Yes, there was grief, but there was also relief and even some joy. He suffered no more. We were blessed that his passing was very peaceful and easy. I'd Caregiven him so very long that I'd achieved that separation between what I was a part of and what was ME.
You "get" it now. It's a liberating kind of crazy.
OMG You all are amazing!!! Wolf, Jan K, Carosi2*. I have thought something was wrong with me, I am not a mass of tears. I do get sad and cry. But most days I wake up and find something to be happy about. And most days I am happy.
Just lately I had started thinking, instead of wish DH was still here. I say I am glad I had him while I did. That seems to make the pain just a little less.
Thank you, Wolf, for thinking of my son. As carosi said, he's gone - and I'm ok. DH is gone also - and I'm ok. Now if I could just sell this house I could maybe move on with my life! Love your posts, Wolf. You will be ok, too.
Yesterday was our 60th wedding anniversary. DW had no idea what day it was, but I did spend most of the day with her. We couldn't do anything outside since it was raining, but she seemed to enjoy listening to music and having help with eating. Today was a beautiful day so I took her on the ALF van for a drive through Acadia National Park. I'm not sure what she got out of it.
I love reading all the posts....my husband has been dead for over 6 years now. I never went thru the awful grieving process once he was gone. It was such a blessing not to have him lying in a hospital bed in one of our spare bedrooms for 5 long years. He had no quality of life....he ate, slept, pooped and peed. Why would I want him to live longer in that almost vegetative state? I didn't, and I know he wouldn't have wanted that for himself. The morning he died it was as if my shoulders could relax and I could take a breath and feel like I had run a marathon and won......he was a wonderful man and I was glad to be able to "repay" him in some way for the amazing life he provided for me. I am okay.....more than okay......I am enjoying life and having enough fun for both of us.....
The drive through Acadia National Park drive is something I would have done, too. I hope you got something out of it, even if your wife didn’t.
My husband’s LTC facility is at the top of mountain and has many outlooks with views of the valley and the distant hills. If the weather is good, I take him out to one of the patios or gazebos so we can enjoy the vista. But he often shows little interest. Instead, he is fascinated by the construction project at the highway interchange just below us. From where we sit, the earth-moving equipment looks like tinker-toys. So while I lift up my eyes to the hills, he exclaims enthusiastically about the bulldozers, backhoes and dump trucks on the ground. I guess we all find beauty in different places.
Congratulations on 60 yrs. We too had 60 years and dh was aware although he told everyone for almost 6 mos prior that it was our anniversary. We had the happy time of camping in Acadia park one wonderful fall on our leaf peeping tour. Beautiful beyond any place we'd been.
Marsh, congratulations on the 60th anniversary, it's a milestone to be proud of. We'll be celebrating our 30th in late summer and I can tell you I'd proud we've made 30!
Congratulations on 60 years, Marsh. I'm sure you have many happy memories of your life together. Sandi, I know many here can relate to your post. My DH is still living but the sadness and grief are present every day. My heart aches at the thought of what we've lost and are still losing. I wonder if I may feel as you do when it's all over. I went to a funeral for one of our friends who died with Alzheimer's and his son said "With this disease you grieve more before the death than you do after."
Dazed, I think that's true in many cases. Witnessing the constant decline whether it be fast or slow is so heart wrenching. I too feel the sadness and grief every day.
congrats dr marsh on your 60th anniversary. indeed a wonderful but bittersweet moment for you. its good to hear your DW can at least still get out to visit mother nature at its best. divvi
Today is a down day. Today the glass is half empty. Today the spirit is not there that dominates lately and instead I began tearing quietly feeling intensely how lonely it is and how hard it's been to keep pushing in the presence of so many intensely painful things that truly are a big part of my life.
I loved her so much and I miss her so badly. I am so lost in where I'm going and what will happen to me. On days like this the knowledge is scary that when I really need help I will be alone and no one will help me. If I have a bad fall or a heart attack. I can't see a meaning yet except to keep going.
Today the reality and the weirdness of how I actually spend my days seeped through and it sends a chill to the bone because I know it is the truth. I go outside to water the plants or chat with the neighbours and with friends and I am going out but it all feels detached still because there is no core I believe in for myself.
I put this here because this is the same forum my strength poured through a day or two ago and it's only in the reality of our own truth that I believe we move ahead.
When we are fragile which I am there are so many variables happening around us that all eddies of thought have their chance on moving us towards somewhere. And if we accept whatever eddies of thought are flowing as the truth then we arrive at random places. And when the eddies of thoughts gripping our mind are emotional reactions to actual bad things happening to us that's not great.
I have insane thoughts. Everybody does. Dreams are insane. I wrote down all my remembered dreams for a year for a friend who couldn't remember any and wrote a book for him walking through them. I found my wife moaning behind the curtains in our shower stall face into the corner trying to walk through the tiles at 3 in the morning. Talk to me about insane.
I have strong will and have proven several times in life I have no fear in the face of death. But I have reactions to what's happened these last eight years that scare me because they are like me watching another me where the facade I am building gets ripped away and replaced by the honesty of how devastated I have been and how strongly I still get swept away by the force those truths still have today.
So what's the real truth Wolf? All of it of course. Including that I know I'll be back on my feet very soon because that always happens and that I'll also be here again because that happens too. I have no fear of appearing strong just as I have no fear of appearing weak. Self aggrandizement and self deprecation are both conceits.
I did this over there or I failed at this over here have little bearing on what I will do now and how those outcomes will be.
I'm hiding today because I'm defeated today. The emotions and reactions are having their way with me. Those feelings are valid and part of me. To deny them is to invite falseness which makes things more complicated which is the last thing I need.
I have no interest in looking like I win every battle. I am winning the war. I know that because the battles are now taking place way over here where it's sometimes very hard but not always very hard. Where I have fulfilling days which I did not have. Where I don't go flying off the road when things go wrong where before I did. Where disappointments are disappointments - not fundamental betrayals. Where I genuinely want things. Where things are genuinely interesting. And where some days it flushes me down the toilet like a fly speck. You can't win them all. No one does.
I had an awful dream last night. Dado was with me, walking and almost normal. Then we were in a warehouse somewhere, and he started to rapidly lose it, from being kind of sharp, I watched him an an instant dim in his eyes and start shaking and look at me with panic. The next thing I knew he had escaped, run off, and I could not find him anywhere. I KNEW, he was hiding. I went everywhere, knocking on doors, digging in rubbish piles, calling out.
That was it, then I woke up. Yuk.
Otherwise, it is a stunning gourgeous Hawaii day, the sun is warming the damp ground from last nights rain. Steam rises from the old lava flow where my orchids are planted, and it looks like the lava is still hot. The newly remodeled screened in deck calls to me to finish the painting and caulking. My heart breaks at the same time it feels solid.
Coco, I know that dream. These things run very deep and it takes time. Lately I have remembered few dreams. My job as I see it is to help my own mind with my concious thoughts and focus on what I believe in. The mind is like a machine IMO just like the body is like a machine. They're both me but not the story.
I've had dreams just like you drescribe and I've had dreams where she's with me but doesn't communicate. If my dreams are buried deeper right now I can accept that as part of the fundamental changes going on. What we're going through is core human being stuff and I see no easy way through.
I think it's important to be aware of the conflict within that everything we do in building ourselves up seems opposed to our reality with them. It feels that way because it actually is in conflict. I write three values on the board. Things that work in those values can stay for now. Things that don't get attacked.
1. If I throw my life away I am a fool. 2. I want a life. 3. My partner supports me being happy again.
I had a reoccuring dream that we were on a trip at a gas station. I went in to pay and when I came back out my car was gone, my DH was gone, my purse was in the car so it was gone. I had no money, no idenity, and I stood there all alone. The manager told me that some woman had gotten in the car and drove off. I dreamed almost this same dream 3 different nights. I told my daughter about it and she said it probably meant that I felt like I had lost everything...even myself, and that maybe the woman who drove off in my car was really the old me trying to get my life back. Weird, isn't it? Is there anyone here who can interpret dreams?
Dazed, you mean qualified? That takes a specialist.
I think your daughter was right until close to the end.
The woman who drove off in the car with him was the old you and him and the new you is standing there with no identify noticing your life has left.
Notice that you went in to pay but came out with no purse or wallet. When you went in your life was normal but when you turned around to come back it was gone along with the wallet/purse you probably would never have left in the car.
Notice the DH role. Nothing. You got in the car and he drove off. Then you came out of the gas station. As your daughter pointed out there are two of you. The old one and the new one.
Charlotte, that is separation IMO. With what you've said happened earlier in your life it's possible that some things are in isolation inside (quarantined) and it's possible that perception and openness afterwards have been altered to some degree.
In my dreams I've walked around naked without any sexual overtones. I've gone to toilets that have no doors. I look for my car constantly although I've never misplaced it. I ride around on bicycles. I appear to own many strange houses (ownership doesn't come up but I walk right into them like I own them). I've thought about some of the dreams I wrote down that year. In one I was being chased by a bear. I scampered up a big tree climbing as fast as I could hearing him thundering up behind me. I got so high up the branches started bending under my weight so I gave the propeller on my beanie hat a spin and started flying away very very slowly. The bear swiped at me and flipped off one of my running shoes. I was out of reach gradually clearing the tree tops, looked around, and woke up.
The most frustrating part is that I can see pictures on walls that I know don't exist. I've managed to look at some of them and it breaks my heart that while I can remember some things in vivid detail, no picture survives to my conciousness.
Wolf, I think you nailed it. My life was gone when I came out of the gas station. Funny how our dreams portray our deep feelings and I suppose they come from our subconcious mind.
There's an old thread here where we talked about our dreams and nightmares. Maybe someone can bring it up for our new members.
Well, after a long drive I am home from my respite. I had a marvelous time and feel re energized. I picked my DH up this evening. He was outside the respite facility on a bench, waiting for me. So care giving begins again.
Wolf, you wrote "When we are fragile which I am there are so many variables happening around us that all eddies of thought have their chance on moving us towards somewhere. And if we accept whatever eddies of thought are flowing as the truth then we arrive at random places. And when the eddies of thoughts gripping our mind are emotional reactions to actual bad things happening to us that's not great."
I agree with Charlotte. We move forward on this journey, then have a setback, and it seems we are moving backward, or we are moving laterally, or we are stuck in one place. And we can begin to wonder if we will ever move forward again. And we want to scream. But Wolf, you are going to make it. I am going to make it. We are not feeling sorry for ourselves. We have questions and are searching for answers, and when we find those answers we will begin to find ourselves. Wolf, you do "sound" more positive than you used to, which means that there is progress. You will have down days, as before, and as you had today, but you will not sink into the abyss because you have willed yourself not to. That was even easier to see when we met for dinner. We did connect immediately, and I have felt the same connection with other caregivers I have met in person. We "get it". Immediately.
Jan K, I loved your story of the tree stump. There is hope for us all!
If you believe a woman's period belongs in the closet don't watch this. But if you want to see how women's periods are coming out of the closet (finally) not to mention how times really do change - don't miss this.
It was posted two weeks ago and is going 'viral' as they say. Twenty three million people have watched this in two weeks. In a month or two it will likely be one hundred million people that will have seen this. It is precisely this sort of thing that drives repressive countries nuts. The truth about the flow of the river of life and that it's perfectly natural.
It's in a comedic tone, is very well done for what it's doing, and to say it's raising eyebrows is an terrific understatement.
I saw that on FB and it is funny. The first video that came out is title Camp Gyno. It is just as hilarious.
Trying to keep cool today - 99 today, 103 tomorrow. A/C will keep it between 80-85 in the MH.
It is hb's shower day. He wanted to do his walking before it got too hot. Now he is outside sitting in the shade. I will battle him to take his shower even though earlier he promised he would not. Oh well, such is life. Could be a lot worse!