A Common Occurrence

Kate and I are in the dining area of our hotel where she is having some juice and yogurt. She has her iPad with her as do I. She is still waking up even though she has been up almost an hour and had her shower. That is quite a contrast with my own morning pattern. I wake up ready to go immediately. This sometimes (often?) leads me to spring into conversation more quickly than she would like. That is especially true with her Alzheimer’s. She is much slower getting ready for social interaction in the morning. So here’s what happened a few minutes ago.

Last night I received an email from Ken in which he thanked Kevin and Rachel for hosting the Christmas dinner. He included several photos taken yesterday and attached them to his email. I hadn’t shown them to Kate last night because she had already gone to bed. While Kate was working a jigsaw puzzle on her iPad and eating her breakfast, I remembered the pictures and showed them to her. There were only four or five and had gotten through two or three when she said, “Do we have to do this now? Can’t we do it later?” I quickly realized I had misunderstood her priorities at that moment. She just wanted to relax quietly with her breakfast and iPad. I thought she would be eager to see the pictures. Once again, I was seeing things from my own perspective and not hers. She even said, “You always want to do things when you want to do them.” Herein lies one of the challenges for a caregiver of a person with dementia. You are always working to think of things to help but discovering that you aren’t always able to see things from the perspective of the one you want to help.