:-) Silly girl.
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Do you wear contacts? I do. I have this stupid issue: I tend to wear them way past the time I should. Now, don't get me wrong, I take them out at night for bed, however I just choose to wear them for a few months at a time instead of a few weeks. Then I get this nasty red eye that forces me to wear my glasses (a la coke bottle thickness) for a day. You would think I would learn! (Stupid human)
I just hate wearing my glasses. If you don't really need glasses then you think wearing them is so hip and cool. Get over yourself. You don't get how blind I am. I am very blind. If I take off my glasses and I wear no contacts all I see is blur. I can make out shapes but that's about it. It is horrible! I have a black and red calendar on the side of my fridge. It is probably 24 inches x 16 inches. When I take off my glasses I cannot see it at all. You can imagine my lenses and their hideous thickness.
This fantabulous trait comes from my father. He had horrible vision and then he went and had Lasik done - that was a whole new process when he had it completed. After his surgery he saw 20/15 for a while. I couldn't imagine life without putting something in my eyes or wearing my glasses. I have toyed with the idea of Lasik. It is just every time I think of it I remember how they say for a nanosecond you go blind. My biggest fear: the nanosecond turns into forever.
I enjoy my five senses though one is weak on its own. I enjoy seeing the world I live in with the assistance of good science. I love to hear my baby babble and little girl make up stories with her dolls and sing in the backseat. I love to smell the steak house when I'm driving through the parking lot, the sunscreen as I coat myself in it, and my husband after a shower. I love to taste homemade chocolate cake, my nasty multivitamin, and good seafood. I love to feel my baby's hands and feet, my daughters silky hair, and a dog's coarse coat.
I'll take my little visual impairment and do better with my contacts. Just like everything else in life I can compare, bitch, and moan but the real idea is this: It could be so much worse.
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Who here has Alzheimer's? Did you know that every 68 seconds a person develops Alzheimer's? Yep every 68 seconds. That is not acceptable. To be blunt that number is way too high. The crazy part is it is not just people in their 80s and 90s but people in their 40s and 50s and 60s!
I haven't been taking my grandma to her appointments. My aunt and uncle have. With the baby's routine and the kid being out of preschool its been a little tricky for Thursdays to go smoothly with an added appointment. I do spend time with her away from the automobile's interior though.
Recently, I have noticed something - my little revelation which probably sits in books written on the subject of Alzheimer's/Dementia.
Summer is good for the demented granny.
All winter we experienced a woman who was - woe is me - she was talking of death, rainy days, bad weather, wanting to die, not being here much longer, how old she is, how terrible things are. The cold season had seriously corrupted her.
Spring came in and it was pretty but cold. In her mind it was sure to continue to rain and storm and be terrible. "Summer might never come" she told me on a trip to town. To which I said, "Really? I think it will when it is supposed to."
Summer, for all intents and purposes, arrived a week ago. The pretty sunshine, the warm weather, birds all over the place, flowers blooming - ahhhh the best season had entered the picture window that was once an outlook to the doom and gloom of the grey months.
The brilliant sunshine and longer days were (and so far still are) a good natural prescription for a demented granny. Her outlook is changing. She smiles more and tries to engage in more discussion and conversation. The rain, still her favorite weather event, is still regularly discussed but without the depression of before. She gets outside the house and when she is allowed outside in the sunshine and flowers it does her well.
Are you identifying with her? It is ok, I do to a certain extent (cabin fever anyone). They call it Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and it is common in the winter months and often overcome in the warmer months. It looks as though SAD loves it some dementia - the two just seem to play off each other. Could you imagine living a life where you are out of control and then another disorder decides to come on over for the breakdown of mental capacities party?
Hell - that's the only term for description of knowing that structurally your brain is breaking down and then chemically it decides to screw you over as well.
She has always loved birds - especially hummingbirds. Where we live is a mecca for the ruby throated tiny flower dancers. I have always known her to have at least five hummingbird feeders around her house. I remember her making the "nectar" to put in those feeders from when I was a little girl. On the stove top in a sauce pan, sugar, water, boil for a minute, let cool, fill them up, hang them up and watch the little birds satiate their thirst.
I remember sitting on the porch watching cars go by - she on one side of me my Dad-o on the other side and the little birds feeding not four feet in front of us on a feeder while we ate ice cream in sugar cones.
A couple days ago she asked me how to make hummingbird juice.
That was a moment I could have been frustrated at her disease and gave an eye roll and said - you know how. But I have been enlightened and I know that this is a new chapter in her book. It can be a fun one if we let it.
"All you do is take warm water and sugar, shake it up, and put some food coloring in it. Its easy. I can help you."
(My uncle eliminated the boiling aspect since its probably on the top three unsafe ideas for demented folks to do --- use a stove top.)
And then she responded - "Oh that's right, I remember now."
If we can make that a common, regular, and believable response from all Alzheimer's/dementia patients what a wonderful world this would be.
#EndAlz
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Michael, row your boat ashore.....hopefully we'll have some summer sunshine for the next post.
Brownie
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