Tonight's picture was taken in July of 2006. Mattie was four years old. It was Independence Day, and I will never forget that moment in time. Mattie's preschool buddy, Zachary, and his family invited us on their boat. We saw the National Capital fireworks show from the Potomac River. It was an incredible experience! It was my first and last time I ever did this. I have to admit I had MANY MANY firsts with Mattie. He brought great adventure into my life.
Quote of the day: We should always pray for help, but we should always listen for inspiration and impression to proceed in ways different from those we may have thought of. ~ John H. Groberg
A day or so ago, my dad got a bug bite on his left hand. Because of his dementia, he fixates on things, and no matter how many times you tell him something, it just doesn't compute. So to make a long story short, my dad has scratched his hand raw. If you look at his hand, it looks like hot water fell on it. It is red, burned, oozing, and looks mean. In fact, my dad's memory care center called me on Monday to inquire about his hand. Apparently my dad told the staff that I put something on his hand, and then his hand turned red. Translation..... that I am the one who caused harm to my dad's hand.
I had to address this and nip this in the bud ASAP. I explained to the memory care nurse that my dad is allergic to bug bites. Then he scratches them and makes matters worse. If you or I got a bug bite, it may last a day or so and be annoying, but it heals. Once my dad gets a bite, it can last for weeks. He then causes so much irritation from scratching, that the redness travels and spreads. There is not enough cortisone and other products I can put on him to resolve the situation. He leaves me no choice but to move to him wearing cotton gloves. Of course what did I see him doing this afternoon? If you guessed..... SCRATCHING, then you get a gold star.
It has been a full day of managing both of my parent's needs. My dad's irritable bowel syndrome was acting up today, and as soon as I showered him and brought him downstairs for breakfast, he pooped in his pants. I had to change him yet again. I also took my mom to the hospital for her physical therapy session today. In today's session my mom was to show the therapist ALL the exercises she is doing at home. The therapist prepped us for this last week, thankfully, because for a week, I have been working with my mom to make sure she is actually doing the exercises and isn't making things up. The therapist is well aware of my mom's memory issues and confronted me about this two weeks ago. After all, if you can't remember what is going on in therapy, then going to therapy is counter productive.
So in the session today, the therapist asked my mom, what the session was going to be about! My mom didn't say.... 'to review my exercises.' Instead, she said, 'I am getting re-evaluated." WRONG! That happened last week. The therapist calmly and patiently explained that the evaluation happened last week. I was certain my mom would have gotten this right, since literally I have been working with her DAILY on her exercise routine. Any case, this afternoon, I confronted my mom about her memory issues. I am encouraging her to start to take dementia meds. She refused to do this when the neurologist suggested this in March, but now I am encouraging her to think strongly about this because I remind her that she did not listen to me about my dad. As I saw signs of dementia back in 2015. By the time we started my dad on these meds it was too late. My goal is to try to stabilize my mom's memory loss. So overall, it was another day in paradise here.
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