This was a doozie of a week

You already know of the head spinning drama of the last post or 2

I my effort to execute on my now defined problem statement, I planned to meet up with Mark and his colleague Kirsten outside of the house so we could talk freely, without concerns Matt would over hear, we’d need to be careful what we said

Mark runs an in home care agency, one that has team who can handle ADL’s

The plan was to meet up locally, at a coffee shop at 8:30 am

I figured since Matt sleeps in, often till 10 am, I could sneak away

But that morning, he decides to get up at 7 am….wandering around…as if he know intuitively something was up

I alerted Mark we might need to modify the plan……just a heads up…..but then Matt crawled back in bed

When he was up, he was deluding a bit, he was demonstrating his environmental dependence thing, so I was genuinely concerned my plan to sneak away was a busted plan

When he crawled back in bed, I thought, ok, maybe we do give this a go

So I alerted Mark “original plan back on”; I went into the bedroom, told Matt I was going to run out for a bit, he said “OK”, I gave him a kiss, tucked the blankets up a bit higher and headed out

We had a great convo, they are circling their team wagons to find us someone who can come in 2 days per week

My hope, and they are game, is we can get someone who can help Matt with the ADLs he struggles with now

ADLs are seemingly measured on a somewhat binary scale: can you do them or not

But they aren’t binary at all, sometimes he can, sometimes he can’t

Some ADLs he can partially do, but needs a change so he doesn’t have a roadblock in the way

Anyway, seems now it’s time to move in that direction

To be specific…..I am hoping the caregiver can help him bath 2 times per week

How ever they can make that happen…..God knows he’s been getting up there in the high stinky ranges lately…getting Grinchy…..and God knows it’s not something I likely have the patience for

It seems so personal, like as his wife I should do….but I wasn’t built, nor did Matt marry, a hand maiden

The other thing I hope they can help with is the environmental dependence activity that drives me absolutely cookoo

Maybe they have tricks up their sleeves they can teach us

So all good on the meeting, we covered a lot of ground, left with next steps

When I got home…..holey Toledo! Matt had been busy!

Furniture was rearranged, the toilet paper stand was in the kitchen, compost was smeared all over the kitchen floor, most of the kitchen cabinet doors were open, dog food container was where the trash can usually is, trash can across the kitchen…..a tornado hit!

He was clearly deluding, mumbling, wandering around, one sock half on, one foot barefoot, stinky shirt on inside out, backwards

I couldn’t decide if he was simply underscoring the fact we needed to bring in help, thru his behavior, or intuitively mad, or scared, that I left him alone

It was hardly an hour!

Thank God the gas stove is no longer a worry….

The rest of the morning was spent cleaning the mess up….getting him to normalize

I say normalize….my initial reaction was to say calm down….but he is in a state of confusion more so than anxiety, I think

So it seems normalize fits better….in my way of thinking about it

Miracles of miracles…..he normalized enough to agree to go to boxing

He has returned to boxing this week, went all 3 days, hooray!

So this week, in a word, has been intense

On the good side of all that, we are getting a slate of options in the works

Mark and team at Hired Hands are looking for an experienced caregiver, Joey Co is working on finding us a new live in Joey, and we are looking at the Hanna Center dementia day program

I genuinely feel I am solving the problem we have, in our unique “we-ness”, not someone else’s version of problem

Only time will tell which of these will work….but something’s gotta give

As I sent pictures to Mark of the kitchen mess I came home to….he says “help is on the way”

All I can say is “ Thank God!”