It Finally Happened

Since Carol was diagnosed with dementia, I’ve been reading bits here and there about what to expect.  One thing I read told me that people with dementia might get physical as they get upset at something.  Today is that day.  The day I had been dreading for a long time finally happened – Carol attacked me.  Well, she tried to, anyway.  Luckily, none of the punches connected.  It all began innocently enough. Today was a day off from work and I slept in.  I hadn’t planned on doing much today – maybe go to the grocery store, probably clean the toilets, do some laundry before the Colorado trip, and maybe watch a German soccer game.  Other than that, there was nothing planned for today.  That lack of a plan came literally crashing to Earth while I was streaming some music from Amazon.  I heard a thunderous crash.  I ran upstairs to see what happened. I got to the bedroom and found Carol standing there.  She was ok – she hadn’t been harmed.  That was a big relief.  A bookcase in our bedroom that contained hundreds of compact discs fell over.  Luckily it didn’t fall on top of her, and miraculously there wasn’t a cat underneath all the rubble.  CDs are just things that can be replaced.  Not so Carol and our cats.

I moved the now-empty bookcase into the closet in the adjoining extra bedroom.  I figured if I got it out of our bedroom, it won’t mysteriously fall over and again and maybe hurt somebody.  As I trudged back and forth between our bedroom and the empty bedroom with hands full of CDs, Carol planted herself in the exact wrong place – in my path, right between the two rooms.  I had asked her to go away because she wasn’t being helpful, also because I didn’t want to slip up and yell at her.  She lied down on our bed.  She was out of the way, quietly supervising my clean-up progress.  She asked me to look at “something.”  I asked her what that “something” was.  There was a whole pile of “something” on the floor and I had no idea what she meant.  Then I took another arm full of CDs and put them in their new hiding place.  When I returned to the bedroom, she was looking at a Tupperware container of paper towels.  She stashes these paper towels all over the house.  The next thing I know, she’s screaming at me to go away.  She advanced at me like she was going to hit me with both fists.  I didn’t want to get hit so I intercepted both fists before they could connect.  Then she started screaming at me to get out of the house and not come back.  I told her that pile of compact discs on the floor wasn’t going to clean itself.  I also told her since I’m paying the mortgage it’s more my house than anyone’s.  That probably wasn’t helpful, but when someone is yelling at you to leave your own house, one gets a bit defensive.

What now?  I retreated to my backroom office, fired up the A/C, and started to write this while she calms herself.  Here I will sit for now.  I just hope she calms down before she remembers where the knives are…

 

An Update...

Since the trip to the ER in June, it has been quiet around the house.  No fainting spells, no bites from hungry mice.  But it's almost too quiet.  Since this COVID nonsense broke out, I have been working from home.  That means from 8am to 5pm, I’m in the backroom, doing whatever I have to do to stay busy and productive.  While I’m in “the office”, Carol is upstairs.  I don’t know what she does up there.  I’m not sure she knows either.  Everyday around 11am I go upstairs and tell her “I hear Chick-Fil-A calling.”  Her eyes light up at the prospect of getting to leave the house, even if it’s just for a few minutes.  We go there, we get our usual chicken nuggets, and then we come back home.  I go back to my hole and she goes back to hers.  In the beginning, she used to come back to my hole and ask if she could just sit there.  In between all the mind-numbing teleconferences that that seem to be accomplishing little other than the appearance of keeping busy and doing “work,” there she was – a most welcome sight.  But lately, she stopped visiting.  She tires very easily.  She’s been going to bed around 630pm.  And there she stays until it’s time to get it up and do it all over again.  Welcome to Groundhog Day.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  She sleeps, and I’m alone with my thoughts.  That’s not a very good place to be these days.   Will her next birthday be her last?  Will our next anniversary be our last? Will I ever retire or will I work until the day I die?

What is a husband to do?  Jigsaw puzzles used to interest her, but she can’t do them anymore.  Games are out of the question.  She used to beat the snot out of me at Scrabble, but that was then.  Sometimes she’ll sit with me and watch a movie, but now she has a very short attention span so she won’t watch for very long.  When I take her to get something to eat, she wonders where we’re going.  She’s slipping away, bit by bit.  I miss the love of my life.  I am at my wit’s end to try to figure out what to do with the time we have left, however long that will be.  I could write more blog posts, but I fear that would lead to self-pity and misery. 

At the end of this month, we’ll finally get to leave this house and go to Colorado to visit her parents.  It’s been hard for them as well.  They live in a senior living facility [it’s NOT a nursing home].  The governor of Colorado has been ruling the state by decree since March.  I don’t know if it has been because he’s overly cautious, or because he likes governing without a legislature.  That’s for the citizens of Colorado to decide.  We had been trying to go out there for several months, only to be told not to come for whatever reason.  Some, not all, of those reasons have to do with the governor’s actions.  About three weeks ago, I texted my father-in-law to tell him I needed to get Carol to Colorado so she could see them while she can still remember them.  Finally, we got the green light.  We will be driving out there.  I won’t risk Carol’s health with busy airports.  But again, there’s a nagging thought – will this be the last time?

One sign of normality has crept back into our lives.  Next week I go TDY to Terre Haute, Indiana for week.  The boys and Mark’s girlfriend will look after her when they can. There are some days when they have to do some living for themselves [work, school].  In those times I’ll have someone from an organization called Home Instead look after her.  I received a visit from one of their staff today.  They hadn’t been here since January [the last time business took me away], so they just wanted an update on Carol.  How’s her health?  Good.  Are your emergency contacts still the same? Yes.  Still have the three cats? Yes.  Does she still have the same doctor? No, we have a new one.  And so, it goes – everything [I think] has been arranged.  Have I forgotten anything?