[Magdalen] Rant

[Allan Carr]

Camille attends an Alzheimer's day care center for six hours a day. She's
driven there and back by our home care person, who we have for eight hours
a day. Camille's still mostly a pleasant person, but her constant
forgetfulness and repetition of the same question over and over again can
be wearying. I hear myself getting exasperated (as I try to stay calm)
while giving the same answer back, over and over again.  I'm thankful for
that center - which she enjoys going to.

I made the decision that we would stay here in our house as long as
possible. We each have a long term insurance policy which we paid premiums
on for many years. Camille is approved for 24 hour care and I'm approved
for eight hours. At this time, I'm splitting the cost of eight hours of
care between the two policies.

Evenings can be tough, not because of her, so much, but because of my own
forgetfulness. I'm forever losing my iPhone, getting exasperated,
eventually using the Find My iPhone program from the computer to set off
the iPhone's alarm, only to find it close to where it should be. Back when
I was using canes, I would also forever lose them by the end of the day.
Now, I use a walker because I think the canes stressed out my shoulder
muscles too much and brought on that month of severe pain (thankfully
suppressed by celebrex) which was, at first, misdiagnosed as a cervical
pinch.

I quit celebrex after an MRI said that that portion of my spine was ok and
that particular pain is also gone. I still have lower back pain due to
spinal stenosis and a peripheral neuropathy that is slowly crippling me,
but pain is suppressed by a host of medications I take daily. My mind
mostly came back after leaving the celebrex TBTG, although I'm still
forgetful at night.

Anyway, we're both capable of taking our clothes off and getting to bed, so
I'm not getting an aide in the evenings just for my forgetfulness, although
sometimes I feel almost desperate when I lose something. There's a limit on
the total amount of spending in each policy and I want to stretch out each
policy as long as possible.

Life is kind of infuriating. I had saved our money to do much traveling in
our old age, but our bodies or minds interrupted those plans. I plan to try
later this year.

When my hearing got so bad that I couldn't enjoy movies at theaters, I
indulged in a huge 60 inch TV, more than ten years ago. I planned this year
to replace it with a new 2015 4k Sony TV when they come out in the spring.
I also planned to switch from my expensive TV bundle of programs to a much
cheaper one and do a lot more streaming from Netfix, Amazon, HBO, and
wherever.

My big TV failed last week. I'm not going to fix it, There are a couple of
old tube TVs still in the house, but I totally feel like going TV-less
until I buy the new TV, whenever that is. But, it's another exasperation.

I feel for you, Jim, and will try to remember to be companionable in prayer.


On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 9:56 PM, <sally.davies at gmail.com> wrote:

> Amen.
>

-- 
Allan Carr