Week Two

Today starts week two since the Doctor dropped the bomb on us.  Each day when our feet hit the floor, our brain has had time to wake up and smell the coffee; we often re-live that hour in the Doctor’s office.  Regularly, we find we are still picking up the pieces of our thoughts, putting them back together and viewing them in some semblance of order.

Dementia is an ugly word.  Not to mention the other words which have emerged in the last couple of decades that are supposed to sound nicer even cleaner or clinical.  It is what it is; and learning to live with the label is left up to the individual and those closest to them.  Is there help out there to learn the stages, and what one can expect during each stage?  I don’t know yet.  I haven’t had time to find what is available.  Right now I’m too mad to ask.  Pardon me today, I need to vent.
Call it the medicine Namenda if you like, call it a misdiagnosis as I like, but either way, I’ve decided that with each person/patient no one can give us a “what to expect, when….” list.  Each person is different.  So…

1. Do I dare hope things are going back to normal? 
2. Do I dare start again to plan for six months from now or even two months down the road, like a vacation trip?  
3. How about having a normal conversation again?  Can I hope for another one tomorrow?
4. Has this medicine really made a world of difference in 7 days’ time? Or was there a rush diagnosis, bordering on a wrong diagnosis?  They tell me not to hope.  How can I not hope?  I see him hoping.

I don’t know.  This is one of those days, I am close to tears.  The financial business of our lives hasn’t stopped.  The paperwork, the filing  of insurance forms, getting forms signed, meeting with attorneys - things I’ve had no need for before, are presenting themselves and it is almost overpowering.  I’ve always handled the financial affairs, but now I am tired and shuffling figures is consuming. 

It is now I need a friend.  For why, I’m not sure.  Would I talk things over with a friend, or would I go on in my pride and pretend I’ve got it handled?   Maybe they would take me by the hand and run away with me for a few hours. Make decisions for me,  it sounds nice but I truly don’t know.

I’ve been told time and again, I analyze too much.  I wish I knew how to stop it.  It is such a part of my makeup I’ve had trouble “casting down imaginations” as I am instructed to do from II Corinthians 10:5  “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;”  That is one I’m having to constantly work with. 

Maybe I need to get out of here today and hit a few flea markets, or the dollar stores; a diversion of sorts.  It would be nice to go into my yard and look at the fruit of all my labors in the spring.  It would be nice.  However, the drought left no sign that I did anything productive in the early part of the year.  Dead sod I watered faithfully each afternoon for months, shows no signs I really did try to keep my investment alive.  Depressing.  So there is no excitement in thinking about what awaits me in my yard.  It is too hot to sit on the deck, or on the front porch in my husband’s “razorback” rocking chair. 

I look forward to cooler weather when I can enjoy my deck.  I love sitting there doing nothing more than lending my ear to the bird calls from tree to tree, or watching the squirrels scurry from branch to branch, or finding their supply of food under the leaves on the ground, to put away for a winter meal.

I know I’m rambling; it is part of keeping a “thought” journal.  My thoughts are inconsequential.  I’ll probably look back on all this in a few years, and feel sorry for myself, that I could not verbalize any better.  The writer in me seems not to care how it sounds or reads, so I just write.

What have I learned today?  Not sure of that either.  Other than “mama said there would be days like this”.  Hehe.  If it wasn’t Mama, it was someone who thought like her.  I don’t know who to thank for reminding me - there are others who have it much worse than I do.  My prayer is “Lord please help me to bless them with my prayers.  I’ll need that blessing returned to me soon enough.”

I am going for Hospice training next week.  My intentions when I signed up in May were to possibly sit with families who need what Hospice has to offer;  did not have myself in mind when I signed up to volunteer that day so long ago.  It was only in May, but it really does seem so very long ago.  We’ll see.

Doris

August 10, 2012