Sunday, October 11, 2015

How does one measure progress in this awful disease?

When you live with someone with Alzheimer's day in and day out, you accept that there will be good days and bad days.  This disease progresses so slowly sometimes it's like watching paint dry but then comes a day when there is a marker.  Hubby (aka He-Who) doesn't say much in groups or around other people anymore.   He's quiet and seems to be paying attention but I don't know for sure.  Today he nodded off during church.

I have grown to accept the obsession with the 3 newspapers we take but today I was so looking forward to browsing through the NY Times Sunday edition, especially the book section and the magazine.  Dang, I didn't get to it before going to church and was out of pocket for a few minutes on our return.  I came into the dining room and the NY Times was either shredded, cut up or taken apart and thrown away.  I lost it for a bit, for sure, and I hate it when I do but this obsession with cutting up the newspaper is crazy-making at times.  I have left notes on the table on what to save but it doesn't do any good.

This week one of my dear friends, Lucia Capacchione, author of 17 books, was in town to promote her latest book, a new edition of The Creative Journal, which she wrote 35 years ago.  Lucia and I have been friends for many years after I attended one of her workshops in Houston and some of my drawings are included in her book, The Recovery of the Inner Child.  We spent 3 weeks traveling Italy together with her mom and aunt and she and her Italian boyfriend spent several nights with us in Houston while she was doing a workshop at UH/CL.  She lives in California so we don't see each other often but it is always wonderful when we do.

We met her at her book signing at Lucia's Garden and He-Who was a total blank on who she was.  He didn't remember anything about her or the boyfriend or the dinners we had together.  We were both surprised but I count it as a new marker...the long term memory is fading!  Strangely enough the next day he asked me who that lady was that we met the day before and how do I know her...short term memory was there.  Of course, he asked again later the same question....so much for memory.  Onward through the fog.

At lunch the other day we sat with a pleasant gentlemen with whom we have enjoyed conversations before.  The dessert was a delicious bread pudding.  We both sat in amazement as hubby dipped his bread pudding in his broccoli soup.  New behavior!  I moved the soup out of range in hopes he would finish the pudding.  He didn't!

Damn but this is a confusing, unpredictable illness.