Each day seems to give me added reason to believe that Kate is noticeably drifting into another stage of her Alzheimer’s. That’s been true the past two days. As I had suspected, she got up earlier two days ago (Monday). I was in the kitchen when she walked in at 9:25. She didn’t say a word. She just looked at me. I said good morning and asked if I could help her. She said, “I want to take a shower.” I got up from my chair and gave her a hug. Then I took her hand and told her I would take her to the shower. Like a little child with her parent, she held my hand until we reached the bathroom. Then she wanted me to tell her exactly what to do. I left her in the shower. I checked on her in another fifteen minutes and found that she was back in bed.
Since the sitter was coming at noon, I decided to let her rest a little longer. I got her up over an hour later. That gave me enough time to have her dressed for lunch. I called the agency and asked them to have Valorie meet us at Panera. The timing worked out well. Valorie arrived right after I had ordered Kate’s meal. Although I am sure Kate did not remember her, she gave her a warm welcome, and I left while they waited for Kate’s lunch to be ready.
Even though I had let her rest another hour, having gotten up earlier that morning caught up with her during the afternoon. She was resting in a chair in the family room when I got home at 3:30. Valorie said she had not been resting long, but Kate did not acknowledge me when I came in the room or after Valorie had left. I went over to speak to her. She was awake but tired. After a while, I asked if she would like to lie down on the sofa. She did and continued resting for another two hours.
As in the past, I wondered if she would be able to go to sleep at her regular time that night. At 9:30, she was enjoying working puzzles on the iPad and didn’t want to go to bed. She did, however, accept my suggestion that it might be better to go to bed so that she wouldn’t sleep so late yesterday.
I let her sleep undisturbed until 11:00 yesterday when I turned on some choral music that she likes. At 11:15, I went to her bedside and sat down. She silently acknowledged my presence with her eyes. I asked if she were ready to get up. She nodded that she was not. Then I said, “Your husband would like to take you to lunch.” She said, “You’re not my husband. I wouldn’t marry you.” I can’t remember exactly what she said after that, but it was something that made me think she thought I was Frank Sinatra. I didn’t push her on this. I asked again about getting up. She said, “I’m not getting up.” Then I brought up lunch again, and she said she would like to eat. I told her I would help her get up and dressed. To my surprise, she accepted that. My only explanation is that she is getting used to doing what I suggested and did it reflexively.
Once she was up and dressed, she was in a talkative mood. She teased me (a bit harshly) as we were about to leave for lunch and in the car. Once inside the restaurant, we were greeted by one of our regular servers whom we hadn’t seen in several weeks. We chatted with her as we ordered our meal. I think that changed Kate’s tone a bit. We had a very nice conversation at lunch. During much of the time, I was trying to explain to Kate something I had said or something that the server and I had talked about. Some of our conversation had to do with music. The music on the restaurant’s sound system was strikingly different today. It was mostly 50s music. Kate and I recognized almost every song.
After lunch, we went to Best Buy to return a DVD player that I bought a couple of months ago. It is a different brand than the Samsung TV to which I have had it hooked up. It had never operated as smoothly as the Samsung player we had previously. The trip to Best Buy turned out to be another social occasion. Kate was in a playful mood and talkative.
When we went to the customer service counter, I noticed that the man in front of me was returning one SONOS audio speaker for a SONOS subwoofer. I also have a SONOS system and mentioned that to him. That led to a conversation about our experiences with it. As he finished up his transaction, Kate went over to him and put her hand on his shoulder, pointed to me, and said, “I should have warned you about him. He just talks and talks.” After he left and I was explaining why I was there to the woman behind the counter, she got involved in a conversation with the young man behind us. I didn’t catch all that was said, but she was joking with him, probably about me.
When I was finished, I went to the back of the store where the DVD players are located. I got a salesman right away and told him what I wanted. He led me to it, and we quickly took care of the transaction. As we started to walk away from him, I saw the display of SONOS equipment. I mentioned my audio system. Kate then went over to him and said, “Don’t let him get into this. He will talk all day.”
On the way out we walked past a display of baby monitors. I’ve been thinking about buying something like that to monitor Kate in the morning while I am in the kitchen and stopped to look. Kate had no interest in the monitors, but there were two large photos of babies behind the monitors. She loved them and commented on their beautiful smiles. A moment later, we passed by a life-size cardboard display of a man. She stopped and said goodbye to the man in a way that was very typical of a small child.
When we got home, Kate walked directly to the bed, got in, and pulled the covers over her. She remained in bed for over two and a half hours before I went into the bedroom to see if she was ready to get up. When I sat down on the bed, she looked up at me. I told her we would be leaving for dinner in forty-five minutes and asked if she were ready to get up. She indicated she wasn’t. I told her I would let her rest a little longer and would get her up for dinner. She said, “Good.” This was the first time I had let her rest so long. This meant that she had been up only three and a half hours all day.
As promised, I went back a short time later and got her up. We had nice dinner. As she often does, she said she would probably “crash” when she got home. She didn’t, but she did get to bed at 9:45. That is pretty typical. The question now is what time she will get up this morning. This is another day for the sitter. I hope she will be up in time for us to have lunch before Mary arrives. If not, I’ll let Mary take care of everything.
Sleeping late has made a significant difference in our daily morning routine. I can’t help wondering if we are moving toward a similar change in our afternoons. Just as we have seen a dramatic decrease in the number of visits we make to Panera in the morning, we are beginning to go less often to Barnes & Noble in the afternoon. Our lives are changing.
