Tonight's picture was taken in February of 2009. Believe it or not this was a photo of a physical therapy session with Mattie. I am telling you there was always an entourage and a lot of activity in order to get Mattie engaged, participating, and moving his body. I will never forget these moments and the amazing efforts of Mattie's team.
Quote of the day: I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you; but instead I am deeply honored knowing you spent the rest of your life with me. ~ Camille Marcotte
I am not sure if you can see the treat on the floor in front of Sunny? It was a pig ear, which we used to purchase for Sunny at the farmer's market! It was a high value treat. As such, Sunny wouldn't eat it right away. He would instead carry it around the house. Room to room for days. Maybe after a week or longer, would he then begin crunching on the ear! This behavior always made me chuckle.
This morning, my mom had a physical therapy appointment at 9:15am. My mom gave the therapist a hard time on Monday, telling him that she did not like her 12:15pm therapy time slot. So the therapist tried to accommodate her today by coming early! What a nightmare. No matter how many times I told my mom about the timing of today (and it was even written on her calendar upstairs), she just doesn't get it correct.
At 6:45am, I came downstairs in my pajamas to feed Indie and to get the newspaper on the driveway. The next thing I knew, my mom was coming down the stairs, fully dressed and ready to start her day! That may not sound unusual, but it was! Typically on any given day, it takes her 4-5 hours to get ready in the morning and then she doesn't get downstairs until 10am. So the fact that she was downstairs before 7am, meant she must have been up at the crack and dawn and couldn't remember (nor knew where to find the information) what time her therapy appointment was today!
Instead of making my tea and going right back upstairs to get myself showered and dressed, I had to stop what I was doing and make her breakfast. In the midst of making her breakfast, I could hear my dad walking around upstairs. It is easy to hear because he uses a walker and it is a very distinguished sound. Any case, I got my mom situated and then decided to go into my parent's bedroom to check on my dad. Sure enough he was VERY confused. Confused because my mom was already up, dressed, and downstairs. He pays attention to her movements! Therefore, in his mind that meant that he had to get up and the morning process was going to start. I found him sitting on the chair in the bathroom with his depends off. He literally convinced himself that I was going to be there within minutes to shower him. Except that was FAR from reality!
My mom truly doesn't get or take any responsibility for my dad. She could have explained the morning process and timing to him. But then again that would mean she was in touch with reality and knew about the timing herself. Which clearly she didn't! I am glad I checked on my dad because if I hadn't, he would have been sitting in that chair for 90 minutes until I showed up.
I am noticing my dad is more disoriented than ever. Last night for example, I put him to bed at 9pm, because he was exhausted. At 10pm, I heard him walking around. I went into the bedroom to see what he was doing, and sure enough he was up, threw his pajamas off and onto the floor, and was getting ready to start his morning routine. Despite the fact that he has a HUGE clock in his bathroom and it was pitch dark outside, he can no longer use cues around him to orient himself to the time of day.
Needless to say, I feel like I am constantly on high alert. If this was the only issue I had to contend with all day, that would be more than enough. But this doesn't even scratch the surface of my days. At some point today, someone from my dad's memory care center called me and then emailed. I never met her before. In any case, she wanted to touch base with me, and encouraged me to call her back. I did email her back and asked her point blank, why she was reaching out to me now. Especially since my dad has been at the center for two years already! I wanted to know what prompted this reach out. At this point in my life, if you aren't helping me, then I deem you as part of the problem!
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