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Sad Moment, – Sundowners?

About an hour ago, Kate came in from outside where she had been pulling leaves since we got home from dinner. I met her in the laundry room, and she said, “What now?” I told her it was time to take a shower and get into her night clothes for bed. She accepted that and went to shower.

After quite a while, I went back to her room to make sure she remembered to put on her night clothes. When I got there, she was about to get dressed to go out. I told her I was just coming back to remind her to put on her night clothes. She thanked me for that and said she was about to put on her regular clothes. I left the room.

In a little while she came into the kitchen fully dressed with her iPad in her hand along with a book of crossword puzzles. She was ready to go out to Panera or Barnes & Noble. I reminded her she needed to put on her night clothes. She went back to her room.

I had sat down in my chair in our bedroom when she walked in fully dressed. Once again, I told her it was time for her night clothes.

She went back to her room. When she returned, she was carrying a night gown but still dressed. She said, “I can just put this on over . . .” (did not finish). I told her she should take off the clothes she was wearing and just wear the night gown, that she would get hot wearing both.

She left again. She came back without the nightgown but had put on a different top. I stood up, walked over to her and put my arms around her and told her how much I loved her. She hugged me tightly and started to cry. She quickly stopped herself. Then I said, “Wouldn’t you like me to get you a night gown?” She nodded. I went back to her room and got a night gown and brought it to her. When I gave her the gown, I said, “We take care of each other, don’t we?” She agreed. Then I took the clothes she had been wearing and hung them up in her closet.’

I am back in the bedroom now. She is working on her iPad. When I walked in, I said, “The way you are lying there you look like the subject for an artist to paint.” Then I said, “We have a good time, don’t we?” She agreed. I said, “We’ve had a good time; we are still having a good time; and we are going to have more good times.”

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Moments of Sadness

Although Kate’s good humor has continued through this morning, that doesn’t mean that the usual signs of Alzheimer’s are not present. Some of these signs cause me to feel sad as they are further indicators of her decline. Over the past few days, I have mentioned a couple of times that we are going to have lunch with our good and long-time friends, the Davises who live in Nashville. Each time I have mentioned it, Kate has quickly said, “What am I going to talk about?” The first time this occurred I told her she could talk about her children and grandchildren and our recent trip to Chautauqua. Even as I said it, I knew that she could not remember enough about Chautauqua to be able to say much. She told me she would need my help. This happened last night at dinner. She said that before the visit she wanted me to go through the things we had done at Chautauqua. She also mentioned wanting me to carry the load on the discussion. I assured her that I would. The subject came up again this morning, and it appears that she is quite concerned about not being able to participate in the conversation. I do know that her memory is so poor that this is something she won’t worry about except when I mention the visit. I don’t intend to bring it up again until time to go on Friday

This morning another moment of sadness occurred as she was preparing to go outside. She couldn’t find her clippers; so I gave her a new pair that I had bought and put away for just such an occurrence. I noticed that the lock on this pair is different from the others and said, “Let me show you how to unlock them.” She felt insulted, took the clippers, and headed for the door. I went to the back of the house to put away a couple of things she had left in our bedroom last night. In a moment, I heard her call to me. I knew what she wanted. When I reached her, she was heading my way and held out the clippers for me. I unlocked them and showed her how it was done. I suspect that she hadn’t remembered that she hadn’t let me show her a few minutes earlier; however, I felt sad for her that she had been so confident that she could do it herself and then had to come back to me right away to help.

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Nice Family Time

Kevin had asked last night if he might come to our hotel and visit us at 9:30 this morning. I, of course, said yes. He just left. Jesse and Greg are staying at the same hotel; so Jesse joined us for almost an hour before Greg came down. It was a very pleasant visit among the five of us. Kate made only a few comments. Those were mostly in reaction to a comment I had made about people our age who are together only a few minutes before they talk about all the prescriptions they are taking or the ailments they are experiencing. It appeared that Kate felt I was making a statement about her because she said that she never did that. She went on to say that she didn’t have to take much medication. I simply agreed with her and nothing more was said.

As we went back to the room after Kevin left and Jesse went back to her room, I said something to Kate about how nice it was to spend that time with Jesse and Kevin. I also noted how nice it was to see them interacting as adults. She didn’t respond in any way. She simply looked weary. When we got back to the room, she asked if she could rest a while. I told her she could. She is in bed right now.

Yesterday while we were at Kevin and Rachel’s house, she said hardly a word. The same is true at TopGolf where we spent about two hours. It is clear that she is beginning to enter her own world. That saddens me greatly.

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Sweet and Bitter in NYC

This is Sunday morning, and we have been in New York City since 9:15 Wednesday morning. I just got back from a nice walk around the neighborhood on the upper Eastside near Bloomingdale’s. Kate is still sleeping soundly. I am going to take a few minutes to collect my thoughts on the past few days.

The first thing to say (and the reason I put “sweet” before “bitter” in the heading for today’s post) is that we have had a marvelous time. It is everything I had hoped. This is the first of a series of things we will do to celebrate our upcoming 50th anniversary (May 31, 2013). I chose New York City because it is the place we have visited far more often than any other place, we love it, and Christmas in NYC is very special. Besides that we had our first date on December 19, 1961, got engaged on December 19, 1962 (50 years ago this month). Our first date was a performance of Handel’s Messiah. Tuesday night we will attend a performance of Messiah at St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue. We both love the theater; so we have also attended My Name is Asher Lev, Newsies, The Book of Mormon, Un Ballo in Maschera at The Metropolitan Opera, and Once. We may attempt another show this afternoon; however, I am tempted to pass some time in our neighborhood. It is a wonderful area, and we have not spent sufficient time here. Of course, we don’‘t leave until late afternoon on Wednesday; so we might do that another time.

Now for the bitter. Although we have had a great time, we are both noticing Kate’s deterioration. At lunch a couple of days ago, she said, “”I would love to come back to New York with Jesse, but I don’t think I could do it again. She would have to take charge.” I said something about the wonderful memories of previous trips. It was a sad moment for both of us. In addition, at each show she asks me to explain things. It is very hard for her to follow the complexities of the stories. Yesterday at the opera, she asked me to explain what had happened after each act. She said she simply couldn’t follow things. I said it must be like there are so many stimuli coming in that she doesn’t know what to focus on. She said that was “exactly it.”

Because of her condition, for the first time I haven’t considered leaving her anyplace to browse and then meet her later. This is something we have frequently done in the past. We have both stuck close together at all times. There have been at least 2 occasions when we have gotten separated momentarily. One of those was going into Macy’s.

In addition, she gets confused on instructions. For example, last night while waiting in line to enter the theater, a theater employee asked us to move down to another line. For some reason Kate thought we were supposed to enter at a different place; so she simply went ahead of people who had been waiting in line. She also has trouble going through the turnstiles at the subway.

All these little things notwithstanding, we are having a wonderful time. It makes me glad that I decided to go all out for our 50th anniversary because things will deteriorate from here. Next year she will be less able to enjoy these things.