AD Still Hard At Work!

I have good and bad days and some are jus plain roten. Believe it or not days I post generaly are not good. Because I start with what I want to post and it just runs out of the brain. It feels like a TV getting good picture and suddleny fuzz, static funny voices, it is realy frustrating.

Well a copuple of days ago we got a new evaluation on where I am, like it really helps me because I never know anyway. We have moved right along to Early Stages of Severe Alzheimer's. Bastard moves fast, but that is the way it is.

New links will be coming and a site added to help you caregivers speak out to each other more to come, I just need to re read emails and get my butt in gear.

Thanks for being there for me and part of the family.

God Bless & Keep You & This Country of Ours!!!
joe

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What is in YOUR Refrigerator?

A few years ago we had the kitcehn remodeled. New Honey Oak Cabinets, with black nobs with dark cherry wood centers, the walls in a chocolate color, and a Brazilian Cherry Hardwood Floor, Black Stove & Microwave and a Black & Stainless Steel Dishwasher.  Then there sat6 are very old but working fine White Refrigerator. So for years you know who has been bitching for one to match, yes me. Well we just purchased a new one. Reasons, much more energy efficient then are 15 year old one, quieter, it has crushed ice a must for me, but most importantly it is BLACK and matches the decor. Happy am I, yes, except for opening it.

You see the last one the bottom drawers were solid and you could not see what was in them. This one they are CLEAR and you see everything. So what you say, well let me tell you there are creatures in those bins. I open the door and they stare at me, I know they want me. I cannot look at them, sill y yess, but that is how my brain reacts to them.Lynn just says Joe, get over yourself and deal with it. Not so simple, things like this are creeping into my life now and I can only wonder what lies ahead. The part of my brain that still understands logic laughs at me, but there is that growing part that sees and witnesses strange things and seems to have more control. The stuff in thre drawers seems to have eyes and moves when I look at it, not anyone else, just me and that is what really counts is how I feel about it.Well I guess I will just have to outfit myself for hunting when I go to the refrig that way I am prepaired for any attack.

Thank you all for being here for me.

God Bless & Keep You & This Country of Ours!!
joe


PS: PLEASE NOTE IN MEMORY OF PHOTOS NOW HAVE THEIR OWN PAGE!!!!!!!!

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Waking Up What Is It?

I have come to belive that waking up is not all that it is cracked up to be. It seems that I never seem to wake up completely anymore. I more or less remain is a state of awakeness if that is a word, if not it is now. I just never seem to quite get with it anymore. I am becoming much more testier and argumentative, wow I think I spelled that right.  Time is more jumbled now then ever before and I have more difficult in getting things out and what the hell i do no t know what i whant to say here.

I no longer enjoy being downstairs in my home, only outside in the front or back or upstairs, i do not know what it is, i am very uncomfortable now. We just spent I do not remember how much when remodeling downstairs the way we wanted it and I do not want to be down there now. I do not understand me anymore. Lynn wants me to talk to her and I cannot even talk to myself. Hell I always talked to myself, I was the only one that had the answers I wanted to hear now I cann't think of them.

Well take care for now.

God Bless & Keep You & This Country of Ours!!!!
joe

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The very Fabric of This Blog

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "talking it out":

Hi there Lynn & Joe. You two sound like such a perfect couple. I'm sorry to say that I am not feeling that way about my husband and I. My spouse is 17 years older than me. He was diagnosed about the same time as Joe and yes, he seems to be experiencing relatively the same stages that Joe is going through. But I must confess, I am not feeling like the pleasant, let me make you feel better caregiver right now. The TV can only be on one of the two channels he chooses, Fox News or the Weather Channel and he doesn't even watch them. He, like you Joe, stares off into space. I try to strike up any type of conversation by commenting about what they have just shown on TV but he wasn't watching it and has no idea what they were talking about. Then he gets angry with me because he is confused about my comments. Lately, he is always crankey and YELLING at me and our extended family (5 children, 6 grandchildren) so they don't seem to come around anymore. I do go to work part time but he is insistant that I not leave him for more than a few hours at a time and demands that I not go anywhere away from him for any type of enjoyment. He doesn't even want me to go shopping to get things that we need, only to the grocery store a half mile away. He makes me feel guilty that he is afraid he will die alone and that I must be with him at all times. And I don't mean just at our home, he insists I be in the same room with him ALL the time. People say to me that I should get out and do things for myself. I agree. But the reality of life is that other people don't include you when they know you have to be home with your spouse all the time. They don't want to be the cause of his anger either. So here I sit feeling so all alone in the same room as him. I provide his meals, cut his hair, do the grocery shopping, take care of our expenses and accounts, pick up his prescriptions, do his laundry and clean up after him. He refuses to go ANYWHERE. Will not leave the house and wants me to do the same. I do understand that what he is going through is very difficult. But there is never any expression of gratitude or even acknowledgement that this is difficult for me to go through also. He used to tell me every night when we went to bed that he loved me, but even that has gone. Now I only seem to be the object of his anger and frustration. But all the same, I will keep on keeping on. I won't give up, but it does help to have an outlet to release my feelings, even if it is to someone I have never met and never will.

Joe, please give Lynn a hug and let her know how much you love and appreciate her. Sounds like you have a real piece of gold to hang on to through this journey we all pass through. My love to you both.

The above is a comment shared on this blog in respose to a posting by my wife Lynn, who I am 16 years older than. This lady is suffering just as Lynn is, I have become very combative, pig headed, a dick, paranoid and more withdrawn.  I have asked many of you to be guest bloggers for the above very reason. I cannot tell you how many 100's of emails I have received just like the above comment.  See all I can respond to these people is that I am sorry for your mate and you, but it is only going to get worse, a lot of comfort right, wrong, but it is the truth. I ask again that you help with posting. See even if you do the same thing everyday, you still do something a little different and that little difference could help someone like this lady. Me i love and appreciate your words of encouragement, but really they are gone as soon as I read them. You see I know that I will not get better only worse and it is doing that quite well. I am on a journey to keep an appointment with mental collapse and physical death that is the reality of it. It sucks, i hate how i feel, i do not like my distrust and disgust with others, but my emotions are no longer mine, I even do not feel bad anymore when I am a real pain in the ass or hurt feelings, my brain says tough crap to you. I hear and see things now that are not there, i do not even know when I am being talked to. Sex keeps rolling in my brain but the old pecker does not help out and I even say who the hell caaares to taht. I am getting like my good friend Dr. Joe Savick, making a 42 paragraph post. Thanks for listening shit has hjust built up in me and while I am thinking of it I am making this post.

God Bless & Keep You & This Country of Ours.
Joe

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A Prior Post if You Will. With Added Comment.

A Warrior's Lament:    (by j.v. potocny)

                                                                   

I kneel before thee

Upon bended knee

My battle axe rusts upon a tree

The Steed that served me well

Now runs free and frail

He served us both with grace and might

Let him rest well each night

There is no deadly mace

That you can see before my face

Gone is my shield which I cannot hold

All that is before you is my sword and face

I have stood tall in all battles

With You I have won and battles song sung

Many with scars some with none

Since a child I have fought the fight

Now I wish for it to end this night

My strength is dried up and gone

No longer does exist that fierce warrior in me

I long to face only Thee

This battle I am in is lost and so am I

So before You I am on bended knee

Prostrate would I lay

But this body is to broken and brittle this day

So I lay before you all I have left

Worn, beaten, yearning, to you I give my soul

No longer in the dust of battle let me roam

I await You and Your Hand to take me in your time

I pray Thee take ME HOME

In Your Name Amen.

This more reflects my wishs of today and my feelings. I no longer like it here. I no longer communicate with those around me well. Most of the time I am in my own little world and do not want to be bothered by anyone. My wife has noticed more and more that I am not with those around me. This is not a friendly world it rather sucks. Things I once enjoyed are a chore, getting things done takes it seems like years to me. It feels at times like my brain is being crushed or squeezed down. It is not a headache but a sensation of being pushed out and away.

God Bless & Keep You & This Country of Ours!

Joe

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Frustration Reigns!

This week has been a difficult week for me. Just toooooo much family and kids. Good thing I have additional meds to take or I woud not have kept things to gether. I love my family, but I am becoming less tolerant, more mouthy, angry and pissed mor easily. I have a grate deal of trouble controlling my mouth and emotions lately.

I want to thank the two who have taken the opportunity to guest blog here. I have invited several that I thought could add to the thought processes found here on both sides of the fence as it awere.  But it seems that some old "friends" choose not to. Everyone has something to offer. Even if it does not agree with what is felt here. That is what this blog is about. Expressing feelings about having dementia and those careing for us. Neither side is neat and tydie, they both suck. I miss the days when I could think more clearly and express myself and do it (ego here) with little room for argument. Now I am lucky to blog at all. But no this you are all welcome even those who feel I am just an angry old fart, angry yess, old yess and I guess a fart as well.

I try to not talk about everyday things, but how this disease affects me overall. Yess some days I am on top of it others I cann't even find the stairs. I do find the walls I walk into them and excuse myself. Yes I have taken additional meds today, and am still shaking inside and my temper is border line, but the impression of my teeth in my tongue helps me keep quiet. I will be posting some emails that I have been give permis to, I ask because not everyone leaves comments.

Dr. Joe I guess the 10.00 bucks I paid you for your post paid off. Doc I really cannot walk on water, trust me, I can barely walk on the ground without it moving. But I thank you, my friend.

Well you all take care and be good to each other.

God Bless You & Keep You and This Country of Ours!
Joe

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Pushy Friends!

I am glad I have some, they help remind me of what my postit notes seem to fail to do. I have not written in while. I have been elsewhere lately, not ecxalty sure where, but I have been there. Getting more tests, health is well not what is used to be. Age this disease, rotten lyfestyle when I was youndger who knows, I do not. What is starting to show more offten then not, is I have no idea what day it is and yesterday seems not to have happened. Hard to explain. But there is no longer any time frame in my brain to connnect things to, so they all seem recent and mixed up. True moments of knowing exactly what I am thinking or doing are growing fewer by the day. This is not a lot of fun and am starting to looose my humor about it. But I am getting to meet someone new each day in the mirror, so I guess that is ok.

God Bless You and This Country of Ours!
Joe

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Lost In Time!

I have jsut relized that we are already at the 10th of January. A new president willl take office in ten days I think it is. When I first got the wonderful news of this new paradise that I am to lvie in, it did not bother me too much. I felt that as with ofther things it was just my turn, deal with it. It was not bad at first I had many good days with small moments in them and then days that just who the hell knows where I was. But they have seemed to merge together. Truly I have a proble with what day it is, even though I keep a calendar by my computer and mark the days off. I have gone back to sticky notes, but the real kick is remembering to use this stuff. I am not angry with the condition, but it really plays hell with you. I do not venture out alone, who knows where I will be. I find spending lengths of time with outrthers becoming quite uncomfortable and extremely distracting. My patients, which I never had, just does not handle it well. I am loosing my train here, so I guess I will go wait for a bus. Catch Ya later.

God Bless You & This Country of Ours!
Joe

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Dropped Call * Dead Zone

This is how I feel in the World of mine, like a droppped call or just the buzzing on the line. The thoughts are there but the connection to the jaw finds a dead zone. No messeages come or go out. It gets frustrating as you talk and sudddenly the line goes dead and your jaw stops and you look at the person and you choke up trying to get the words out and suddenly even the thought is gone. Emptiness in the brain cell. It happens when trying to write on this blog, I sit and have things to say and then the brain, fingers and keys on the keyboard become strangers. I go nowhere without someone with me, not good idea. Now the family worries because of the heart problems, I just look at it as one moore thing to add to the list, someday I will get through the list and have to start over, why, because i won't remember the beginning of it, so I will not know if I got to the end. This all makes perfect sense to me. But then so does waxy ear build up, whatever the hell that means. I know I do like hearing from folks who stop by and take the time to read my babble, strange humor and other things.

If you want to know about me truly, read my post, A Warriors Lament, it tells about me from beginning to where I am at now.You may not understand it, but I do and that is what matters to me. Well for now have fun and be kind to yourself.

God Bless You & This Country of Ours!
Joe

PS: VOTE TOMORROW - I HAVE ALREADY.

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A WARRIOR'S LAMENT (By: j.v.potocny)

I kneel before thee
Upon bended knee
My battle axe rusts upon a tree
The Steed that served me well
Now runs free and frail
He served us both with grace and might
Let him rest well each night
There is no deadly mace
That you can see before my face
Gone is my shield which I cannot hold
All that is before you is my sword and face
I have stood tall in all battles
With You I have won and battles song sung
Many with scars some with none
Since a child I have fought the fight
Now I wish for it to end this night
My strength is dried up and gone
No longer does exist that fierce warrior in me
I long to face only Thee
This battle I am in is lost and so am I
So before You I am on bended knee
Prostrate would I lay
But this body is to broken and brittle this day
So I lay before you all I have left
Worn, beaten, yearning, to you I give my soul
No longer in the dust of battle let me roam
I await You and Your Hand to take me in your time
I pray Thee take ME HOME
In Your Name Amen.

Joe

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A Friend Shared With Me, So I Pass It On To You!

THE POEM
I knelt to pray but not for long,
I had too much to do.
I had to hurry and get to work
For bills would soon be due.
So I knelt and said a hurried prayer,
And jumped up off my knees.
My Christian duty was now done
My soul could rest at ease.....
All day long I had no time
To spread a word of cheer
No time to speak of Christ to friends,
They'd laugh at me I'd fear.
No time, no time, too much to do,
That was my constant cry,
No time to give to souls in need
But at last the time, the time to die.
I went before the Lord,
I came, I stood with downcast eyes.
For in his hands God! held a book;
It was the book of life.
God looked into his book and said
'Your name I cannot find
I once was going to write it down...
But never found the time'

God Bless Your and This Country of Ours!
Joe

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