The "New Normal"

Since Carol [aka She Who Must Be Obeyed] got her dementia diagnosis, we had to go through quite the period of adjustment to where everything is somewhat stable.  As Bill Rutherford told me, it was going to take a while to figure it out, but we’re finally stabilized into a “new normal”.  What would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago is now a daily thing.  These are just some of things I can think of off the top of my head…

I am her Pez dispenser

She Who Must Be Obeyed doesn’t drive anymore.  She made this decision when she got her cancer diagnosis.  She has since kicked cancer’s ass, but now with her being cognitively- impaired, she decided to stick with the whole “not driving” bit.  Accordingly, I’m the one who goes to the pharmacy.  Since I know what meds she takes and when she’s supposed to take them, I arrange her pill box.  She has taken that one step further.  When she remembers that it’s “pill time”, she brings me her pill box.  I take the pills out and give them to give her.  She’ll ask me “haven’t we done this already today”?  And I tell her “yes, we do this two times every day”.  She nods, takes the pills out of my hand, and takes them.  Sometimes [usually at bedtime, whenever that is] I have to chase her down and dispense her meds to her.  Sometimes my mind will be elsewhere [usually Netflix] and before I know it, she’s already asleep.  I have to wake her and give her the meds.  Luckily for me she’s able to fall back to sleep fairly quickly.  Although my head doesn’t tilt backwards on a hinge, and I don’t have a hole in my throat, I feel like a human Pez dispenser.

Inanimate Objects are Migratory

In this house, things have a tendency to be in a different place than where you last saw them.  It could be a tissue box, a cat litter box, a trashcan, her pill box, the TV remote, my car keys, or even my toothpaste.  Whenever I ask She Who Must Be Obeyed how something gets from one place to another, she doesn’t remember having moved it.  For my own sanity, I concluded that everything in this house has grown legs.  If she isn’t moving things around, that’s the only possible explanation.

The Tree People are Seasonal

The other day I asked She Who Must Be Obeyed if she had seen the “Tree People” lately.  The answer kind of surprised me.  She told me she hadn’t seen them in awhile because there weren’t any leaves in the trees. This solved a mystery for me.  When we visited her sister Lisa in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving, all the leaves were off the trees [they actually have four seasons in Wisconsin, unlike Florida].  I asked her then if she saw the “Tree People”, and she said “no”.  I didn’t ask why, so I left it at that.  But the last time I did ask why, and she told me.  They only go up in the trees when there are lots of leaves on the trees.  Mystery solved!  We have more than one “spring” in Northwest Florida.  Since we don’t have harsh winters here, sometimes when it feels like spring the trees are tricked into growing their leaves.  But when it gets cold here [it does happen sometimes], the trees shed their leaves again.  This happens several times a year.  I expect when the leaves do reappear [and disappear again], so too shall the Tree People.

What Used to Be Bad is now Good

She Who Must Be Obeyed used to really dislike certain things to eat.  I don’t know whether this is due to dementia or that her taste buds got all screwed up by chemo.  Here are just a couple of examples.  Take chunky peanut butter, for instance.  For a long time, I have been safe in the knowledge that I was the only one in a family of four that likes chunky peanut butter.  Everybody else goes for the creamy stuff.  Recently, I discovered that we were going through chunky peanut butter faster than I can eat it.  Then I found out why – she’s been eating my chunky peanut butter!  I asked her why, since in the thirty-five plus years we’ve been together she has gone out of her way to express her disdain for chunky peanut butter.  She just says “I don’t know – I like it now”.  The same can be said for Whataburger and Bundesliga soccer.  She used to think Whataburger burgers tasted like cardboard [silly person].  Now she likes them.  Before she got sick, whenever a Bundesliga match came on the television, she’d flee the room.  Now she watches them with me.  She likes to see the ball being passed all over the field, and she likes that the action never stops, unlike American football where the average play lasts six seconds.  She also likes to make fun [with me] of the players who act like they’ve been shot whenever they receive the slightest injury.  She appreciates the game now.  Maybe it’s just a passing phase…