Life is a mix of random
things at the best of times. And that’s true of the worst times, too. Dementia
is not stable or static, even in the mildest cases. Progression is the word, and progression takes its toll.
Randomness grows more random in scope, depth,
colour, wallpaper texture, and range of stabiliser fins. Dementia is an ocean
and I’m on a dive with the one who suffers from the swirl of it.
If I’m lucky, two days a week I have a few
hours off. Carers come in and wonder how I fill that free time. I could fill it
with trivial moments. Just go back to bed. Have endless coffee after endless
coffee, staring out the window. Or staring at the wall.
And that’d be a break for me. Just staring
at the wall. It doesn’t sound like a break. I am regurgitating a conversation
with the dentist from the other day. Now I have to think about what day that was.
Feels like yesterday. All days feel like
yesterday. Today I had a reasonably quiet day, but I was ambushed by dementia’s
randomness at the end of the night. All the recovery, the recuperation, I
gained from having a quiet day…that exploded into nothingness over a
twenty-minute period.
My break from that, before falling lifeless
into bed, was a random comment from a friend online…and that just about saved
what sanity I had left.
Arranging a longer break
takes eternity. But I am 90% of the way through that. And this will be the
shortest break possible – two nights away, just to see if the cared-for takes
to it. She should take to it…
I have the hammer ready to fall on the
longer break…and that’s a short break as well…but it’s very specific and I need
to move fast on the second break as soon as the first one is voted a success.
The pieces fall apart in front of me. That’s
my plan. Watch it all fall to the ground in shards. After every
mini-crisis…recovery. People tell me to look after myself. I do what I can.
Right now I am frazzled, and I just need to write it out – minus the detail – as
the cogs go whizzing around late at night.
In my race to be done with racing thoughts,
I hope I haven’t forgotten anything. All the major appliances are off except
the fridge. The doors are locked. And in the morning it’ll be all smiles again,
as it was this morning.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Another day, another pile of randomness. The cared-for sat and waited for the
minibus. She knew who I was, and sang my praises. Then she sang along to the
concert I played for her. We waited for the delayed bus and she declared this fun.
It was fun. She wasn’t quite her old self,
but things were near as damn it. And yes…I hate and treasure the moments. For
they are only moments, and I hate to see them dissolve into chaos and cluttered
thought and lack of concentration all over again.
The minibus arrived and the attendant
announced that the missing glove was left behind on the seat. I don’t leave
stuff behind on seats. Call this a mania or call it being organised. I always
check my seat once I’ve left it, just in case I dropped something out of a
pocket.
Why? I have many pockets. That’s why.
I am mid-month as I put this
blog post to rest. So many appointments and changes to appointments and
last-second alterations. What did we learn? That at least one person in the
system has impeccable timing and called me midway through my call to fix
problems that were about to go in the direction of skyward-facing breasts.
Saved at the last second by someone who made
my life so much easier. Too much happened this month, and the month’s not over
by the lengthiest chalk. I’m calling it quits and posting the blog now, before
a jammy log blocks the sink.
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