Got up at 6:00 after a restless night. I don't know why every once in a while, I don't sleep well. Maybe I was thinking of the fact I had to be out front and ready for the Access Van at 8:07--this for a 9:00 start in Oxnard, maybe twenty minutes away. When I got there, I realized it was actually a Parkinson's Disease program, not Alzheimer's. However, I figured it would touch on cognitive problems and it did.
This didn't tell me (or the rest of the audience, I'm sure) anything new and exciting. It included a lot of feelgood stuff for caregivers that everybody over ten has heard a million times: Take care of yourself or you won't be able to care for your loved one; be sure the PD person eats lots of veggies and gets plenty of exercise; be patient with his/her failings; and so on. However, I sat with two women, Helga and Melanie, who both happened to be German, and we had some good talk, so on the whole, I enjoyed it. Lunch was chicken with sauce, sliced potatoes, a teeny sprig of broccoli, and sliced carrots, all of which surely spent their previous lives in the freezer.
Was picked up at 2:00, home twenty minutes later, dropped my info packet off, and took off for the bus. I was going to go into town, but it was drizzling--in fact, it rained intermittently all day--and I decided against it. Went to Target for a few things, then home.
I was pleased to get an email from my nephew, Dave, to the effect that he and Polly will be in L.A. in early February and would like to see me and other relatives. I was planning to go to Mesa, AZ then, but I consulted the person I'll be visiting and it's okay to put it off until later in the month. Got an invitation to a surprise birthday party for Alex M., one of the state managers for American Roadhouse, the August show I was in. I like her a lot and hope I can go.
Speaking of that "be patient with the patient" mantra, Betty called in the evening. I don't want to go into detail, but it's enough to say her old spirit of competition was there in full force and I was hard put to keep on lid on my annoyance.
Emailed Nancy to see if she was available Tuesday for Knives Out at the Midtown--with lunch after, of course.
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2 comments:
I know what you mean. The pre-morbid personality is still very much there. People don't become angels once they develop cognitive impairment. They change, but remnants remain...sometimes a lot of remnants.
Absolutely, Pat. That explains, I think, why Betty's and our brother, Frank's characteristics are so different. He tends to sit silently and be rather mild, whereas Betty is often querulous and combative. They could be called "the zombie and Little Miss Mental."
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