Tonight's picture was taken in January of 2005. Mattie was three years old and enjoying his bath time. By the time Mattie was a toddler, he started to LOVE bath time. Not because he was getting clean or liked how the water felt. Mostly because he loved to play in the water. He brought all sorts of toys into the tub and his creativity was endless. He went from a child who hated the feeling of water, to one who absolutely loved it. So much so that if I did not pull him out, he would stay in the tub for over an hour until he was water logged.
Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins.
- Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 74,741,586
- Number of people who died from the virus: 885,801
I got up earlier this morning so I could get myself together, make breakfast, manage my dad's routine, and get him to the podiatrist appointment on time. Since my dad developed diabetes years ago, he has needed the support of a podiatrist to manage his foot care. Ironically when my dad was hospitalized in 2020 for sepsis and then an impacted colon, he lost a lot of weight, and with that he no longer has diabetes. Of course we had blood work done last week, and I will be curious to see if his sugar levels are still stabilized.
My dad's dementia requires a lot of patience. He will ask the same question about a thousand times. Especially if he is anxious about something. So over breakfast, he asked me about twenty times what time his appointment was, where the doctor was located, and when we were leaving. Of course no meal is complete for me without jumping up and taking my dad to the bathroom. The notion of a meal in peace is LONG GONE. The non-stop questioning today was so overwhelming that I literally left our house thirty minutes early just to get my dad in the car to manage his anxiety.
However, before heading to the doctor's office I had to go to the post office. Which is about five minutes from our home. Once at the post office, my dad had lots of questions about directions to the doctor's office. Keep in mind that I am directionally challenged on a good day and I am NOT familiar with my new neighborhood. When I moved in August, my entire time at the house has been focused on fixing it. Which meant that I haven't had time to explore where I live, much less understand how to get from one place to the other. That notion alone makes my dad very nervous, and therefore, he practically insists that I use the GPS in the car to get around.
I left my mom at home and I took my dad alone. Fortunately I had good parking karma and got a spot close to the building's entrance. My dad has never been a walker and now a days, just getting him up and showered seems to be as much exercise as he can manage in a day. He is constantly out of it and exhausted. In addition his feet and ankles are swollen. However, this is not a new occurrence, but I have made a mental note of it over time, and now added to this he gets out of breath easily and has chronic exhaustion. I have insisted that my dad see a cardiologist, which we are doing in the beginning of March, but the foot doctor today also mentioned the notion of congestive heart failure to me. So I have got to get down to the bottom of this with someone who actually knows what they are talking about.
Despite having gone to the bathroom at home (right before we left), my dad had to use the bathroom again at the doctor's office. The office staff were lovely and allowed us to use the internal bathroom, rather than the one in the hallway. After the visit, I got my dad back in the car, and came home, just to make lunch, fold laundry, walk the dog, and the chores continued.
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