Kate was up a little before 9:00 yesterday morning and in an especially good mood. When I mention her good mood, I am a little concerned that you might think that she generally wakes up in a bad mood. That’s not the case. Typically, however, she is slow to wake up. That has been her pattern throughout our marriage. She is generally a little groggy and not ready to talk.
This morning I went to the back of the house to see if she was awake. She had just gotten out of the shower and was sitting on the bed. She was about to put on a pair of pants when I walked in. She was quite cheerful and said, “You came in at just the right time.” She pointed to her back. I thought she wanted me to scratch it. Just yesterday, she had asked me to do that. It turned out that she wanted me to dry her back. I said, “I sometimes misunderstand what you want.” She smiled and said, “That because you’re not a girl.” I said, “Well, I know that sometimes presents a problem.”
After drying her back, I started to walk out of the room. She said, “Don’t go yet.” She was trying to figure out which way to put on her pants. It is increasingly a challenge for her to put them on so they are not backwards. She wanted to make sure that I was there to help her if she didn’t get them on right the first time. While she was doing that, I asked if she would like me to get a top for her. She did. I showed her one that used to be a favorite of hers. She didn’t want that. I got another one that is new. She liked it but then decided it was too dressy. I took it back to hang up and select something else when she said, “Why don’t you just let me do it.”
What I want to convey about this whole exchange between us is that Kate was quite cheerful and even a bit playful. She wasn’t really upset that I was offering help. In fact, she was seeking my help. In the end, however, she felt sure enough to get her own top. Interestingly, it was the one she had worn yesterday. I had just picked it up off her chair in our bedroom and hung it back in her closet. I’ve noticed that she seems to gravitate to things she has just worn.
When I first walked in on her this morning, I noticed that she had gotten out 4 pair of socks. They were all black, so it didn’t seem like she would have taken them out to decide which to wear. That’s just another puzzle. That reminds me that yesterday she brought two extra tops with her when we went out for dinner. They’re still in the car. When we went to dinner last night, she took a bra and two wash cloths she had used during the day.
I have often commented about the importance of music to both of us. I don’t believe I have said anything about the things she sees that also give her pleasure. For example, at Panera this morning, she turned her iPad around to show me the puzzle she had just finished. It was a black and white kitten surrounded by a ring of multi-colored flowers. She said, “Isn’t that beautiful?” She especially likes the ones with kittens. I got one set that has fifty puzzles with kittens. There are several that she especially likes. She often comments about how cute they are.
It’s not just the beauty in her puzzles that she likes. She loves all the greenery this time of year. The lot behind us is heavily wooded. She loves sitting in our family room and looking out on the trees. As we drive around town or out of town, she notices “the green” on either side of the road. It is interesting to me that she takes more interest in the green trees and shrubs than the spring flowers which usually get the most attention.
We had a good time at lunch. I said something to her about the boys’ soccer team that is trapped in the caves in Thailand. She was quite interested and wanted to know more (as she was and did the previous time I brought up the topic). I pulled out my phone and read her a news report. She probably asked four or five times where this was happening. This is a good example that her interest in what I have been calling rational thought (names, facts, and figures) that her Alzheimer’s has affected. She derives most of her pleasure from her experiential world. She literally lives in the moment and enjoys herself; nevertheless, she retains a normal intellectual curiosity. In the earlier stages of the disease, she expressed a good bit of frustration over her inability to remember. Except for her anxiety attack a couple of weeks ago, she hasn’t shown any frustration in a good while.
It pleases me that she still has her interest in what’s going on in the world around her. I frequently explain (briefly) events that are going on in the news. She wants to know, and I assume that in the moment I explain them she is satisfied. Neither the memory of the event itself or my explanation lasts more than that moment. Yet, I take it as a good sign that we can have these conversations.
We enjoyed ourselves so much at lunch that I hated to leave her with the sitter. We got home with enough time for us to sit down together in the family room. A short time later Mary arrived. I wondered if Kate would feel as regretful as I that she was here and that I was leaving. I needn’t have been concerned. Kate greeted Mary just as naturally and warmly as I would have wanted.
The best part of the day came after we returned home from dinner. We went to the family room where I expected her to begin working on her iPad. She did take it to her chair, but she also picked up the photo book that her brother Ken had made for her back in May. It’s over 140 pages filled with pictures of their lives from birth through May when we were together with them in San Angelo. It was just this past Monday that the other sitter, Anita, said Kate had taken a long time to go through the album with her.
I was taking care of a few household things while Kate began to look through the album. Periodically, she called me to look at a picture. She was really engaged. The amazing thing is that she spent a full two hours going through the book. She went through it once and then started over again. She only stopped when she was getting sleepy and wanted to get ready for bed.
This may seem like an ordinary event, but the only other thing I have observed that occupies her time for that long is her iPad. She sometimes spends as much as eight hours in a day working jigsaw puzzles on it. When she was working in the yard, she could easily spend four or more hours, but she gave that up more than a year ago.
When something like this happens, I always speculate on what made her do it. Usually, there is no clear answer. That is probably the case this time, but I do wonder if her current loss of so many memories could be behind it. I am remembering her anxiety attack when she said that she didn’t know who she was or where she was. It seems likely that looking through the book gave her a sense of her connection to so many forgotten memories of her family and her history. I hope so, and I am sure that Ken made this book with that in mind. Whatever the explanation, I know that she was fully engaged and enjoying every moment she spent during those two hours. Yes, it was a very good day.
