Parkinson’s

I Wish I Could See Through Her Eyes

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Cheryl sees many shapes and things and people that I cannot. I wish I could see through her eyes just once in awhile. I might have a greater understanding and appreciation of what she is going through.

Yesterday as I left sitting at the table with another gentleman waiting for dinner, I suddenly realized that in many ways she is gone. It saddened me deeply and I cried a bit. She is staying at a memory care facility while I go to visit my sister across the country.

I am hoping for a great visit. We have not been together for two years.

Sleeping last night was very hard as I expected it to be. I thought about Cheryl and hoped she would not be too disoriented or afraid. She is more of both lately. Several times over the last couple of months she made reference to being gone. The first time I sat with her and listened. She was convinced she would not be available to have her hair cut in August. She is still here physically but her words are a mystery often. It is frustrating to her that she cannot find the names of her family and friends. It is frustrating to me that I cannot guess the correct words and help.

I hope she knows who I am when I get back. I wonder who will I be when I get back. But if not I will need to figure out a greater amount of care for her. A meditation for another day.

Carpe Diem.

Free Falling

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The Traveling Wilburys or some other group recorded song many years ago with this title. There are many days when I feel just like this. We are free falling through life with Parkinson.

There are days when I wish I could see the world through her eyes. There are days when I wish I could sense the world through her jumbled senses. There are days when I wish I could understand why it was important to stack the Kleenex just so.

It is exhausting.

This morning as I think about Cheryl’s disease and how it is affecting her and how it has changed our life my emotions about it all are jumbled up in my thoughts.

Love is carrying us through it all but a few more scientific facts would be useful.

Some evenings go smoothly and she is calm when she goes to bed at night. She sleeps. I sleep. Those facts may have little to do with outcomes of the next day. Last night I lowered my expectations of her and suffered along. Eventually about 1 AM sleep happened.

Today we have donuts for breakfast.

Carpe – this – Diem. The next day may not be.

A Day that will Live in Infamy

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Looking back from the afternoon towards the morning I have to laugh a little.

Cheryl’s doctor is still adjusting her meds. Trying to sort out sleep issues, depression issues, hallucination issues, movement issues and other Parkinson dilemmas takes time. In the meantime sleep is illusive. Last night I got the message – quit taking the quetiapine for sleep. So I did not give her the quetiapine.

This morning I got the message, the doctor has communicated with the neuropharmacist and reviewed all the other stuff she is taking. Start giving her the quetiapine 75 mg for 5 days and then 100 mg from then on. The nurse practitioner will check back in two weeks to see how it all turned out.

That is counter intuitive. 75 mg is twice the original amount of quetiapine that she was taking. After I finished reading all that I went to check on Cheryl. She was awake as she had slept poorly but quiet enough that I slept like a stone or at least a stone with a two-teaspoon bladder capacity. Overnight I sensed that Cheryl was awake but she was not talking gibberish which happens sometimes when she dreams out loud. I fell asleep easily after getting up a couple times. (God, I hate old age.)

We decided on waffles and fruit for breakfast. She ate her pears and part of a waffle and disintegrated into a coughing nausea fit which caused her to quit eating anything else for awhile. As that died down a bit, my cousin-in-law called with a long explanation about why she was unable to participate in Pizza Tuesday tonight.

Linda told me a story about her upstairs neighbor’s incompetency, water leakage and associated repairs. I started to think my life was not so bad at least my building wasn’t falling down around me.

Cheryl decided that she wanted to lay back down for awhile. I helped her back to the bed room and the bed. I then returned to the kitchen to finish assembling a new pot of coffee and wait for the next activity. I turned on the kitchen tap and a tiny trickle came out.

When I had the kitchen remodeled a few years ago I opted for the super faucet that I only need to touch somewhere to make it come on. It was a $300 option but it was extremely handy over the years. It is a battery powered system and the problem that presented itself told me the batteries needed to be replaced. Alas! I found new batteries and did that. Still no water! I called the plumber. Micky listened and told me that they have had a couple failures but she was sure mine was still under warranty and would check to see how long to get parts and call me back.

I took my coffee pot to the sink in the utility room for water. The sink in the utility room was running very slowly. WTF? Did we have a water main break? I called the Greater Cincinnati Water Works generic hold number and the robot answer-er asked if I wanted to discuss my bill. No! I replied. and eventually was connected to queue manned by a single human. This is similar to going to the post office to buy stamps at the wrong time of day. While on hold i decided to go look for my Amazon package that the driver had beeped my door buzzer about earlier. The package was leaning on my front door which led me to look into the front lobby of our condo building. The front door was propped open by a plumber who was working on the new neighbor’s condo up stairs. I tapped on her door and grumped long and loud about turning off the water to the building without warning anyone. — Turn about is fair play; she grumped loud and long about someone stealing her ladder when she was moving in which did not happen. The painters thought it was theirs and realized their mistake and put it back in the incorrect spot.

Someone had mismarked the main water supply which comes into the building as the cutoff for the second floor condo not realizing what they were doing. Our new neighbor’s water shutoff valve was hiding behind the water heater. The plumber figured out where it was after we complained about the water being off. He got bad information from a resident that was not here. Who knew?

I later apologized to my neighbor about raising much ado about nothing.

In the meantime Cheryl’s head is off in lalaland.

Sleep would be a good thing for her.

It is Pizza Tuesday.

Carpe Diem.

A Prayer for Self Compassion when Care Giving

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I was reading the St. Anthony Messenger today which is something I rarely do. This little prayer at the end of an article about self-compassion struck me as apt. It also reminded me of Mom and something thing she told toward the end of her life. She said, “I think I need a mother.”

What she meant was she was tired and needed to have someone else be in charge. We all need to give ourselves a break.

At the end of her life I took control of Mom’s finances and I did not always do what she wanted me to do. Sometimes I thought her ideas where crazy (not the right word) and told her so and later I would feel guilty about it. I needed her to be the mother.

Sometimes I think about Mom when I am helping Cheryl. In many ways Cheryl is slowly, ever so slowly wasting away like Mom did near the end of her life. Sometimes it makes me angry, sometimes sad. I am always trying for better and more compassion. Some days it is just plain hard.

Maybe I need to give myself a break.

Carpe Diem.

I Wish

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I had a better memory of Cheryl’s funny little conversations that she and I have when we go out to eat or I drive her somewhere to be out of the house for a bit.

Over time – it took some time – I have come to understand the value of “going with it.” If Cheryl wants to call the painters tomorrow and get them going on painting our condo which is something she talks about occasionally, I merely respond with encouragement. Yes we should do that first thing tomorrow. I wish she did not have these odd thoughts but they are there. Those thoughts will be brand new tomorrow. Fresh to her. She will not ask why I did not call the painters, yet. She might not remember wanting to get the place repainted until next week. So I just go with it.

Her conversation on our way to somewhere is comical. It can be all over the place. It can be hard for me to keep up. She will tell me about cloud formations and what she sees in them. The next sentence might be let’s invite Mom for dinner tomorrow and maybe Jan will come. I talked to Jan this morning, she is moving to Florida. Alas both her mother and her sister Janice have passed from this life.

Earlier today I came back from riding my bike and she asked me if I had a good visit with Nancy. These questions which indicate confusion of previous conversations and where I disappeared to I will answer directly. I do not “go with it”. She accepts that.

I wish for a lot of things. As we take a walk today in great September weather in Ohio I wish she had more stamina. For the first time ever since I saw her sit and rest on her walker. She is doing the feet thing she does with her transfer chair. The walker is not as easy to control.

As she looks at her electronic picture frame full of photos I gleaned from Facebook and other sources she is anxious to make copies of the various photographs and give them to the people in the photographs. Cheryl does not understand where the pictures came from. I wish that she understood that, then maybe she would not be worried that others in her family may not have the photos.

I wish she was not confused but she is. When the medical student doing clinical work with Cheryl’s neuropsychologist yesterday asked her what month it is, she answered, May. This new doctor that Cheryl sees has a palliative care clinic. She wants to help Cheryl live her best life with her disease. I hope she is able to help Cheryl.

To Cheryl Christmas is next week. Maybe it will be.

Carpe Diem.

Hope-aholic

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Interesting concept.

Watching the early morning newsy shows yesterday a guest mentioned this concept. The word stuck with me because I think all care partners are just that – HOPE-aholics.

Hopeful the incontinence will be less or gone.

Hopeful the memories will not completely fade.

Hopeful that she will be less anxious in the evening.

Hopeful that she will think she is home at night.

Hopeful she will sleep peacefully overnight.

Hopeful she will walk better with her left side.

Hopeful she will do her speech exercises.

Hopeful she will remember who I am during the day and into the night.

Hopeful she will not be afraid of what is to come.

Hopeful, always hopeful, she will be fine with staying in a respite situation while I travel to visit my sister.

Hopeful that I will not be anxious while away.

Hopeful that she will eat more.

Hopeful that she will not lose more weight.

Hopeful that visitors will make her days busy while I visit my sister.

Carpe hopeful Diem.

Friday – A Weird One

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It started like a normal morning I got up at 7:30 or so and left Cheryl sleeping soundly in bed. I put the last of yesterday’s coffee in a mug and told the microwave one minute. I woke up the Wordle on my tablet and went out to get the paper. Someone, perhaps our new neighbor brought them inside the front door. I picked up Jeanne’s paper and her mail. She is 98 and does not go out much or downstairs much. I carried her stuff up to the bag she hangs on her door for that purpose. I noted that she had not retrieved yesterday’s paper from her bag. (Maybe I will check on her later.)

I watched the news on hurry up speed up as I had prerecorded it when it came on at 7 AM. There is still a lot of things going on that I have no control over. But at our little group of condos, the decks are fixed, the roofs are on and the trim is newly painted. The landscape folks want me to accept the quote for scraping snow and putting out ice melter. Winter is coming.

I started thinking about Cheryl, winter, gloomy weather, sundown syndrome and care partner stuff. About 9:30 AM I went to see if she was awake and ready for breakfast.

I found her in that in between sleep and wakefulness that we all experience in the morning. Usually my right hip tells me (You are old buddy boy. Move your ass.) to get up and move around. Cheryl and I exchange small talk and teasing for a bit.

“Do you want a kiss on your ear?”, I say.

“No”, she replies.

“What about on this cheek?”

“Okay.”

“Scrambled eggs for breakfast?”

“Sure.”

“Toast with grape jelly?”

“Yes.”

“Want any bacon?”

“Not today.”

“I am going to get your rollie chair. I will be back.”

She is more comfortable these days with me scooting her out of bed and into a transfer chair. We go into the bathroom for a trip to the toilet, pills and then into the kitchen for breakfast.

On this day when I sat her on the toilet she began to shake, sweat and cry a little. “My arms really hurt.”, she said. She initially complained about the toilet seat being cold. I ignored that because she often makes that complaint. Her hands and arms were shaking violently and I held the glass and straw for her to take the meds that I placed in her mouth one by one. We have done this before but not with the shaking action.

I had been gently rubbing her left arm as I helped her take her pills and she asked me to stop. She told me her arms were hurting. I got her a nsaid pain reliever that had been prescribed by her doctor for occasional pain occurrences.

It is a little chilly in Ohio this morning and although our thermostat reads 75 F in the bathroom it seems even to me a little chilly. In the middle of moving her from the toilet to the transfer chair, I got her heavy fluffy ugly pink bathrobe on her. I combed her hair and rolled her to the kitchen.

Apple juice, scrambled eggs and jelly toast later, the shaking and sweating were gone. Her arms did not hurt anymore. She still reports a little pins and needles tingling in her hands and fingers. The meds seem to be working but this whole episode was new. It began after I had gotten her out of bed with no complaint and onto the toilet, also with no complaint.

A cold toilet seat seemed to start everything. And that is very weird. Maybe I need a couple of these snazzy covers.

Carpe Diem.

Another Learning Experience (God I Hate Those)

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Learning and Letting Go

Care partners get practice every day at letting go of anger and frustration. In the evening and overnight cognitive decline and memory loss manifest as sun-downing and confusion. Last night was one of those and one in which the sleep helping medications did not work.

After a couple of hours of fidgety and squirmy, up to the toilet and looking for medications to take, eventually Cheryl fell asleep. Eventually, her care partner fell asleep also after hearing the living room clock chime two.

In the theme of “Carpe Diem” my thought on this morning is to be bright and cheery. I am typically not a bright and cheery person in the morning. Cheryl will not be but she has Parkinson and did not sleep well.

So where is God at 2 AM? He is probably asleep as should all of us who are not on night watch.

I learned two things from this experience. I learned these before but the lessons did not stick with me. First, I learned that anger inhibits sleepiness. I had a difficult time relaxing enough to attain sleep mostly because I was angry with Cheryl at 1 AM. And second, Cheryl will not remember today. She will be aware of only one thing in the morning and that is being tired. She may remember me being angry but will not remember about what.

As I said, this is not a new lesson. It is merely one easily forgotten because it is human to feel slighted by another. The real lesson is, “It is not her.”

Letting go of yesterday’s and early this morning’s emotions will be a better way to start this day. Yesterday is past. Today is a new day. Seize It!

Carpe Diem.

Longing for a Life

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Some days when I look at family pictures I find myself longing for a different life. I long for a life without Parkinson. Often it is a deep deep longing on those days when Cheryl is struggling and I understand she is struggling and I have no ability to help without making her feel helpless. Her dementia pattern seems to inhibit her from asking for any assistance or realizing that she needs assistance whether it is me holding her up so that she can steady herself or simply handing her a tissue to blow her nose or blot her mouth when the drool comes.

Care partners run out of gas too. On most days her memory seems to work for about 10 minutes. ( That may be a sarcastic quip.) On others the loss of the discussion is much shorter than that. On those days I become frustrated which manifests as a louder whiny voice and sounds like anger. It sounds like anger even to me. Cheryl responds with anger and I suddenly remember where her mind is. It is very easy to forget she is still Cheryl. Repetition helps her know what to do or where to go or what she thinks she needs to do. Nevertheless it can be frustrating.

I started writing this short essay a couple days ago when I was feeling down? lost? tired of it all? – defeated? – maybe all of these. Sometimes I just wonder what if?

I doubt that anyone dealing with a partner in life that has a chronic disease wishes for their current existence. Endurance and strength to get through it all is all I ever hope for.

Looking back on the past few years, the covid shutdown, the covid start-back-up, the lifestyle/work style changes to society, the meanness of social media politics, I realize that Cheryl and I do not have it so bad. I wish her dementia to be gone but it is not – except for the few moments early after she awakens. She will look at me with tired eyes and smile. It lifts my heart and soul when that happens.

I still wonder “what if?” I just do not let it control me.

Breathe in, breathe out, move on. — Jimmy Buffet

GULF SHORES, AL – JULY 11: Musician Jimmy Buffett performs onstage at Jimmy Buffett & Friends: Live from the Gulf Coast, a concert presented by CMT at on the beach on July 11, 2010 in Gulf Shores, Alabama. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for CMT)

Picture stolen from NPR.

Carpe Diem.