Life on the 36 Hour Plan

           Imagine a plan that is much like flying around the world, you are never sure of what time zone you are in at the moment.  That is living with an Alzheimer's person.  You can touch and feel, the clock tells the time but yet you are dealing with an unreal environment.  Conversations are meaningless a second later, items disappear within a minute, and words don't represent objects.  Some active like eating is on a fast track but other events, like a lazy afternoon in the sun, is on a month-long-time-frame.

            Time each day is spent by me finding objects that have been moved out of their location and vanished.  After cutting the grass the other day, I asked John to follow me to the garage as I pushed the mower.  He carried the muncher black attachment bag for the mower.  I paused at the garage and announced that I had to go in the side door of the house and open up the garage door.  After the garage big door was opened,  I walked toward the mower and John was not there anymore.  I walked into the back yard, then I walked into the house.  John was in the kitchen but the attachment was no where in sight.  I looked around the house, the garage, his bathroom, the laundry room, the den, the garage again.  This large black bag had managed to disappear.  John suggested a glass of water on the counter as the possible item that was missing.  The clock said 10:30, this was the fourth thing of the morning that had been offered up to missing file.

              When I hear people tell me that I am fortunate that John attends the Senior Center and that somehow that is the magic for my day or life, I have to smile.  Those six hours four times a week leaves me with the other 30 hours each tour of the sun to deal with.  Yes, it gives me time on the ground but the most of my remaining time is in the outer space zone.  I find my personal needs of quiet time, socializing, creative time, managing daily life needs like bill paying is squelched in those six hours periods. Periods can flow peacefully by for days but there are moments that pile up in the corner of the brain that are pure primal scream.  Only an experience caregiver can sympathy with one another about that corner of the brain.

              John often in the evening is occupied by sorting cards from two decks of cards.  The process used is original to him.  The other pass time that John enjoys is looking at photographs.  I have shoe boxes of photos. About 50 pics are at his chair in the living room and there a other piles in a couple locations in the house.  Those pictures remind me daily what a great life we have shared together over our marriage.  We have loving family, healthy children and grandchildren, memories of great friends, gatherings and of exploring the world together.  It has been a full, full life. John's shuffling of photographs bring me back to view how lucky I am.  It balances the moment of utter insanity.

Cars and Driveways

         It is sometimes hard to explain my life with John because it changes in the most minor details but yet is changes each day and the result is I must be more on guard.  Sometimes it is funny, sometimes it is boring, endlessly boring and some times it is frightening but mostly it is a constant drip of the life a caregiver to Alzheimer person.

         This morning John was in the garage as we got ready to go to the Senior Center.  John walked toward the trunk of the car and I suggested that he should go to the sit in the front seat.  He walked to the side of the car and he had no idea of how to get into the car.  He stood there with a complete blank look how to process to enter the car or how the car door worked.

           Now the seat belt is a daily story with many chapters, most days the seat belt is a new experience but let me tell the funniest.  One day John took the his belt to the end of it's length and buckled into driver's side.  It was  a stretch but he clicked it!

          Ken, Mira and Ahman stopped over this afternoon.  It was delightful sunny day and I asked Ken to start my lawn mower because I am not strong enough to do it.  We have had the most rainy month ever for March so you can imagine everything about the yard is beyond over due.  Ken graciously mowed the back yard, John need to go in the house and use the bathroom, the kids were having a snack in the house.  As Ken finished cutting lawn we were having a conversation standing near my patio.  From the neighbor's back yard a voice is calling us.  "Hey, Hi!   I am over here!"   "Hi! Look I am over here!"  John had gone out the front door of the house. Gone to the neighbor's driveway, enter though their gate to the back yard and wandered into their backyard.

         The roaming is relatively new but it is growing.  The neighbors have brought John home a couple times in the last month and I have waved John home the distance four lots, walking down the street. Unless you are a caregiver yourself you have no idea how fast this happens.   Fortunately there are no bitting dogs on this block and the neighbors all know about John.