Under the Weather, Part 2

I am still feeling under the weather, and a dear friend's amazing husband has taken The Old Man out for a couple hours so I can rest. When friends offer this kind of help, please don't turn them down as I did at first, embarrassed. Say "Oh, yes! Thank you so much!" Trust me on this one.

Three hours later, I hear the doorbell. My husband has asked our friend to bring him home, and his face brightens when I open the door.

We go to the kitchen. He sits at the table, looking at me tenderly, and I start to prepare yet another cup of green tea with lemon and raw, local honey and a tiny bit of cayenne pepper. He asks me a question. I attempt a response, but I start to cough uncontrollably and try to explain, between coughing fits, that I can't talk very much right now. His hands cover his face as he rests his elbows on the table, his expression sullen and dejected. Is he crying?

"Honey," I ask, concerned, "What's wrong?"

"I just like you so much."

He just likes me so much. It makes him sad that I am sick. I go to him and give him a hug. This is a moment to remember. Can you blame me for having tears in my eyes?

Under the Weather

I've been under the weather for a few days. Okay, a week and half. I finally decided to go to the doctor yesterday. My husband was with me, of course, and I was half afraid they would want to admit me. What would I do then?

But they didn't, and I'm trying to breathe between coughing fits. I'm on the couch, trying to rest, trying to ignore his urgent requests to leave the house to go somewhere or do something. It is a losing battle. He paces.

"Please, would you get me another glass of water?" I ask, lifting my glass in his general direction. Maybe he needs something to do, to focus on, besides being stuck in the house with me.

"Okay," he responds, taking the glass from my hand and leaving the room. Some minutes later, he returns with an unpeeled lemon on a children's plate.

"Honey," I try to modulate my voice. "I asked you to bring me a glass of water."

Again, he leaves, returning some minutes later. With a peeled lemon on a plate. He means well and is trying to help, I know. I force myself to get up, take the peeled lemon back to the kitchen, put it in a baggie in the refrigerator, and get my own glass of water.

Because when you're the caregiver, that's how it is.

Puzzles for Brain Health

Isn't he charming?

My husband has always enjoyed working puzzles. For years, we subscribed to a so-so newspaper just because he enjoyed the New York Times crossword puzzle, which he usually completed in fifteen minutes or less. I enjoyed the comics and the letters to the editor, but that's a topic for another day.

Helping Papa

When my husband was diagnosed with this illness, puzzles were suggested as a possible therapy to keep his mind active. So I went out and bought puzzle books, the kind with the answers in the back in case you get stuck. But I noticed, once he started going to work with me every day so he wouldn't be home alone, that he was less and less interested in crosswords. I also noticed that he would "solve" one or two words incorrectly, get stuck (no matter how many times I suggested checking the answers in the back), and move on to another puzzle. I downloaded easier, children's crosswords to no avail. I tried mazes, which were more successful. But only for a while. And we switched to our old pal, jigsaw puzzles.

His favorite jigsaw puzzles had always been the really hard ones with lots of tiny pieces that look alike. Well, they all looked alike to me, with subtle color variations and barely any indication of skylines or lakefronts until the puzzle was coming together. It was a challenge. The pieces would be grouped together by color, shape, size. And naturally the border was always completed first, a kind of frame for corralling unruly pieces. I knew these puzzles would be out of the question.

A couple of years ago, he was interested in completing 500-piece puzzles (with quite a bit of help). A year ago, he worked 100-piece puzzles. I went to the dollar store and purchased dozens of 100-piece puzzles. Every time they had a new one I thought he'll like, it came home with us.

Today's puzzle.

Early this year, I started working the borders for him, and he worked the main body. Though he will sometimes surprise me by completing the rest of the puzzle entirely on his own, this is becoming a rarity even if he's worked the puzzle many times before. In fact, where he used to work at least one and sometimes two or even three of the 100-piece puzzles a day, he now seems to have lost interest. A puzzle can sit on the table for days, unfinished. He takes coins out of his pocket and organizes them with the puzzle pieces or even as part of the puzzle, as if they somehow belong there.

Has the task become too much for him to handle, or is he just bored? I suspect the former. There's lots about this illness that's evil and discouraging and depressing. This is just one of many things.

The Wallet

A couple of years ago, my husband started fixating on his wallet. More specifically, he started fixating on the items in it. The minute we sit down somewhere, out it comes. He takes everything out of the credit card slots, places each item carefully on the table, asks me about each one, and says, "Where's my money? I don't have any money!"

I show him that he does indeed have some money in the back of the wallet. He takes the bills out, looks at them, carefully replaces them. I coax him into putting his wallet back in his pocket so it doesn't get misplaced. Outwardly, I'm as calm as can be. Inside, I'm freaking out and hyperventilating. I wonder why this bothers me so much. It's traumatic. It triggers something in me.

And then I remember. My dad used to do the same thing. It would drive my mom bananas as she tried to cope with caring for her man, who was slowly going away just as my husband is. He used to have exactly $5 in his wallet, and he counted it over and over, much to her dismay. I used to wonder why this bothered her so much. I get it now, Mom. I'm sorry I didn't understand then, but I most definitely do now.

I Get Off Work at 6

I just found this post that I never published. It's a little rough and from almost three years ago, when my husband was still driving (only in town) and was home alone while I was at the office (three days a week). We live less than a mile away:

He shows up at the office at 5 o'clock thinking I should be home by now. I explain that I don't get off at 5 o'clock. I have never gotten off at 5 since I started working at this job (25 years ago).

"Well, what time do you get off?" he asks impatiently.

"6 o'clock," I reply. (My hours are 9:30 a.m. - 6 p.m., with an hour for lunch.)

"6 o'clock? Who gets off at 6 o'clock?!" He leaves the building in a huff. As quickly as he arrived, he gets in his car and vanishes.

But he comes right back and parks in the parking lot, where I can see the vehicle. He comes in without saying anything, standing right inside the outer door, in my line of vision. He is obviously very impatient, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and back. He leaves without saying anything. It's a little creepy, to tell the truth.

I used to think this was passive-aggressive behavior. Maybe it is, but maybe he just misses me, wants me to be with him all the time, and doesn't understand why I'm not home at 5 like everybody else. Yes, I am aware that not everyone is home from work at 5. But, evidently, he doesn't remember that when he was working, it was a minor miracle if he was home before 7. I decide to leave work a few minutes early and arrive home at 6 p.m.

"What took you so long to get home?!" he demands, looking at his watch. [He still looks at his watch, but he could tell time back then.]

"I came home a few minutes early," I cheerfully respond.

"Early? It's 6 o'clock!"

"Yes. I get off at 6 o'clock. I left a few minutes early."

"Who gets off at 6 o'clock?!" he exclaims.

Reading that again, I marvel at how "normal" (comparatively speaking) our life was at the time, and how restricted it has become (more on that to follow). He never did remember my work hours, though, no matter how many times the conversation was repeated. Before I "retired," he wondered why I was still working, why I had to stay until the end of the work day, why we couldn't just go somewhere. Now that I'm retired, he wonders why I'm not at the office. I can't win.

Experimenting with Meditation

As we walk on the bluffs above the straits on this beautiful, sunny day, I decide to try an experiment in meditation for my husband. Meditation, we've been told, might help with the agitation an Alzheimer's patient frequently feels in the late afternoon. My objective is to help him quiet his mind by focusing on hearing.

I find an isolated bench in a peaceful spot on a small wooden footbridge overlooking the water. We sit down, and I ask him to close his eyes. I close mine.

"What do you hear?" I ask him.

"You," he replies, facing me with his eyes wide open.

I decide to try a different tack.

"All right," I venture, "I have my eyes closed. Please close your eyes. Are your eyes closed?"

"Yes," he responds. But his eyes are open.

"Please close your eyes so you can concentrate on hearing. I hear the waves on the shore. I hear a car in the distance. I hear birds singing. What do you hear?"

"Like that thing there," he responds. His eyes are open, and he's pointing to a screw sticking out of a board.

I am getting the idea that hearing is not what we need to concentrate on today.

"Okay, let's do something else. I feel the sun on my skin. It is warm. Do you feel that?"

"Yes."

"Do you feel anything else?" I ask, the cool breeze blowing the hair away from my face.

His hand finds its way to my leg as he sits closer to me. This is not exactly what I had in mind, but it will certainly do.

Where's Your Husband?

I'm standing at the stove, cooking dinner. It's been a fun afternoon, followed by some really spectacular sundowning by him and an outstanding meltdown by me. Dealing with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can really take it out of a person, especially the day after daylight savings time starts. Everybody's body clock is off kilter, and it's a full moon. Just being "real."

"Where's your husband?" he asks while spreading his puzzle pieces in random fashion all over the kitchen table.

"He's here," I respond.

"Really? Where?"

"You're my husband," I explain, perhaps a little bit more flatly than I intended.

"Oh. Okay," he says with as little enthusiasm as I've heard in a long time.

Golly. Thanks...