Not much going on Joe

It has been a rather slow start to summer. Since Dad is past the stage in his disease where he is impossible to get along with, his life is pretty much an uneventful routine. We take him here or there to add some spice, but he doesn't comment on it or talk about it later. He asked me to call someone for him the other day and I said that I would do it right then. I told him I would get the phone and call right away. As I was dialing I noticed that he had wandered off. He had forgotten about it already. The highlight of his life is now what happens each day at adult day care. The piano is fixed and he can play again on Tuesday. He is happy.

The most notable part of his decline is loss of speech. He has, of course, had problems finding words for some time. The rate of loss has accelerated. Simple words come with difficulty and conversations are hard. That brings a sad point. We had guests the other day and mostly they just talked around him. He sat at the table with them, but he couldn't follow their conversation. When he interjected a thought they would politely listen, but then ignore further attempts to engage him in conversation and would go back to their own. These types of events are very hurtful to the Alzheimer's patient. They know they are being snubbed, but can't articulate the hurt. A monthly newspaper column, "Time in a Bottle" had just addressed this issue the week before company did the same thing to Dad. Seeing it happen in real time brought alive the truth about the disease discussed in the monthly column.

One of our nightly attempts at supper is to start a short conversation with Dad about his day. The conversations never last long, but we try to engage him. Ten minutes later in the middle of another conversation, he will suddenly interject an idea from what we had been talking to him about before. Ideas process slowly in his mind and when it gets focused on something it may last a long time before anything comes out. At that point it often makes no sense unless you think backwards and try to think as he thinks. It isn't always easy.

The good news is that in most ways life for him is now better. He has no great rages anymore. He seems to look forward to adult care and talks more about it when he gets home. Life is stable and secure. We are less stressed. That is our current sunshine in his descent.