Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2003. Mattie was a year and a half old. I am not sure Mattie's fascination with our kitchen sink, but there you have it. He would request some times to sit in the sink, look out the window, and play with the items I used on a daily basis!
Quote of the day: Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a band-aid being ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbelly of a household is never pretty, ours no exception. ~ Jodi Picoult
Peter left for Boston today. He will be spending a week there and celebrating Thanksgiving with his family. It is the challenge of geographic distance now, when family is not in one location. Meanwhile, whenever Peter goes away, my dad goes into some sort of hyper alert mode. He wants to know where Peter is, when he is coming back and so forth. He is persistent and will ask constantly. So now I have the dates marked in red on my dad's calendar, in hopes that this will cut down on the multiple questions.
My dad had a follow up appointment today with the doctor. The doctor wanted to hear how the introduction of Ritalin is going. All I can say is.... it's not working. He doubled the dosage today and we will see if there is any change, but I am not holding my breath. Why this new drug? Well about two months ago my dad had an allergic reaction to a bug bite. It was so significant that he had to go on an oral steroid to stop the reaction. While on the steroid, my dad became a different person. He had more energy, was chatty, and far more alert and engaged with the world. So I told the doctor.... how do we get more of this?! The doctor doesn't want my dad on long-term steroid use, which I can appreciate, but so far Ritalin isn't even coming close to steroids.
My dad is chronically exhausted and if I don't prod him to do things, he would sleep the day away. As his caregiver, it is very depressing and also hard to transport him around with this level of exhaustion. My mom insists on going out every day, so of course my dad needs to be in tow. All I can say is, it's not easy. While driving my parents around today, I could see my dad turning his head and looking at my gas gauge. My dad has many obsessive compulsive issues, one of which is the car has to have a full tank of gas at all times. When it isn't full, he gets very anxious. No matter how many times I have told him, I am driving and managing the gas, he can't let it go. My car had a half of tank of gas today. You would have thought it was a national crisis. Within five minutes, he looked at the gauge ten times. He makes me so crazy, that literally I stop whatever I have planned and find a gas station.
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