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Especially Good Mood

October 12, 2017 (7:21 p.m.)

I don’t often post a second post so soon after another, but I have just witnessed a first. About 45 minutes ago, I called Kate in from the yard so that we could get to our haircut appointment at 3:00. She came right in, something that she didn’t use to do but that has been becoming more typical nowadays. When we got in I told her we had to leave in 30 minutes. I know she can’t remember, but somehow it seems to help me to give her a reminder that we are going someplace soon.

As I expected, she took a shower. At 2:40, I went to her room to check on her. She had gotten out of the shower but was not yet dressed. As she started to dress, she motioned to me to find a bra for her. I looked in her drawers and several other places. I finally found one and brought it to her.

Getting into bras can be challenging for her. I hesitantly offered my help and said something about women’s clothes being so difficult to get into. Very naturally she accepted my help and together we got it on. Then I told her I would get a top for her to wear. I gave it to her. She gladly accepted it.

As we were leaving the house for the car, I thought about how cheerful she had been in a situation that in the past has been one of the most difficult for both of us. She knows I like to be on time. I know that she can’t keep time straight and doesn’t seem to be able to hurry. This time she was as cheerful as she could be. She didn’t hurry but she dressed more quickly than usual. What’s more she accepted my help.

In the car on the way to the hair dresser’s, she mentioned that she got ready without causing us to be late.  More significantly to me is that she specifically noted that she didn’t give me a hard time and let me help her. I was stunned with here observation. Then I told her I was glad to hear her say that because I had just been thinking the very same thing.

This particular experience is consistent with the way she has been since Monday afternoon.  I know it’s too much to think that this will last; so I am just going to rejoice in this moment. I am also going to remember that even when she is less cooperative, she is not really difficult to deal with. As I have said so often, we are very fortunate. I hope those of you who read this and are having much more challenging experiences will understand that I recognize our good fortune and wish it could be the same for each of you.

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Our Story

Kate and I met in the fall of 1960 while students at Texas Christian University. I was a junior. She was a sophomore transfer from Stetson. We met at a Sunday night social at the home of another student and high school friend of Kate’s. Apart from meeting, neither of us remembers anything else about that night or any contact that we had between then and December 19, 1961, when we had our first date. I took her to a performance of Handel’s Messiah. We had no idea that would be married almost 18 months later.

In some ways, we were from two different worlds. Kate was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas. I was born and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida. Her father was from a family of 8 children, 6 of them lived their entire lives in Fort Worth. Only one of the eight children lived out of state. That meant Kate grew up with lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins. I, on the other hand, had no relatives living in my home town except my mother, father, and brother. I had grandparents who lived in Tallahassee along with an uncle and two cousins, but we rarely saw them. My other grandmother lived in St. Louis and stayed with us during the winter. We both grew up in Methodist families, but her family was more actively involved in church than mine. In addition, West Palm Beach was a much more secular place than Fort Worth.

Our first date came near the end of the first semester of my senior year. I had taken a part time job at a funeral home at the beginning of the second semester. This job turned out to play a central role in our courtship. I was on a tight budget; so I didn’t have much money to spend on dating. The funeral home offered a couple of perks that helped me. First, as flowers were transported from the funeral home to the cemetery, there were always some that came loose from the bouquets or stands on which they were fixed. Sometimes I would pick up a carnation or rose and drop by the campus to place it in the driver’s seat of Kate’s car. Another benefit involved my occasional trips to another city to pick up a body and bring it back to the funeral home for a service and burial. When I was on these trips, the company paid for my meals. They let me take Kate along and picked up her meal as well. We would have a nice dinner. Then we stopped by the funeral home to pick up the body, and bring it back to Fort Worth. Looking back, it’s hard for me to believe that Kate’s parents never had a problem with this. At least they never said anything.

Kate and I married on May 31, 1963, and lived in Fort Worth the next two years. We both pursued master’s degrees at TCU, she in English and I in sociology. She taught English at a local high school. I had an assistantship in sociology for which I taught a couple of introductory courses. Upon the completion of my M.A. in the summer of 1965, we moved to Madison, Wisconsin,  where I started a Ph.D. program in sociology at the University of Wisconsin. Kate took a job as a secretary to the director of graduate admissions in the English department while finishing her master’s thesis. She received her M.A. in 1967. We both considered our three years in Madison as a very special period in our marriage. We felt like this was the first time for us to be on our own since we had lived our first two years in Kate’s hometown. Neither of us had ever been to Madison before that July afternoon we drove into the city. The university, the town, and the friends we made there changed our lives in lasting ways.

Because there were so many spouses applying for teaching positions in the public schools in that area, Kate was unable to get a teaching job. That turned out to be a good thing. She became a secretary to the director of graduate admissions in the Department of English. He was quite a scholar and a very interesting man. He and his parents, German Jews, left their home country in 1938 as Hitler’s persecution of Jews intensified. Several years later, one of her friends at TCU married her boss, and Kate kept up with him until his death in 2015. This relationship provided Kate with a strong bond to the university even though she was not a student there.

In July 1968, we moved to Raleigh, North Carolina where I took a position as Assistant Professor of Sociology at NC State. Like the move to Madison, this one signaled the opening of a new chapter of our lives. I was beginning my professional career, and Kate was pregnant with our first child, a daughter, when we made the move. Two years later our son was born. During the Spring of 1971, I joined the faculty of the Department of Sociology at the University of Tennessee. So off we went to a new adventure in Knoxville where we have lived for the past 47 years.

I taught at the university for seven years while Kate cared for our two children at home until they were in preschool. Like most other parents, our lives were wrapped up with our children. Kate, who didn’t cook at all before marriage, became quite a cook afterwards. Just about everything she learned came from her mother who had reputation as an excellent cook and hostess. Not everything she knew about cooking came from her mother though. During the early 1970s, she became a fan of Adele Davis. She also took great interest in our childrens’ diets. She wanted them to have snacks that were nutritional. She used to make homemade yogurt regularly and mixed it with orange juice for frozen popsicles. She made homemade whole wheat bread and pizza with whole wheat crusts.

When our second child was about a year away from first grade, she enrolled in a master’s program in library science. She completed her second master’s degree in 1977 and began a career as a librarian/media specialist with the public school system. As she did, I left teaching to embark on a career in my own market research business that continued until my retirement in 2012.

In 1990, shortly after her father died, Kate retired from the public school system and became a volunteer librarian at our church. This turned out to be a fulfilling position for her. She was well qualified professionally with an M.A. in English and a second master’s in Library Science. Beyond this her background in church and her personality made her a natural for this position. She loved working with the staff and the members, especially the children. She served in this position 19 years. Her only reason for retiring was her Alzheimer’s. That made her work more challenging. She just couldn’t handle it in the way she had done in the past.

As a volunteer, her work provided her a good bit of flexibility that she hadn’t had with the school system. That is important because my professional career involved a lot of travel. Occasionally, especially if I had a meeting in New York, she would travel with me. Either before or after my business obligations, we would enjoy ourselves. In New York that meant attending Broadway shows.

It was also a time when both of our children had graduated from college and establishing their own families. In 1998, our first grandchild was born. Since that time we have added 4 others, twin boys for our daughter and her husband and 2 sons and a daughter for our son and his wife. Up until the oldest was 15 or 16, they visited us one child at a time for a week each summer except for our daughter’s twins. They always came together.

Sometime around 2006 Kate began to exhibit the first signs of Alzheimer’s. She recognized  that her memory was not as good as it used to be. I tried to reassure her and repeatedly told her that we all develop greater diffculty remembering things as we age. I wasn’t just saying this; I really believed it. As time passed, I noticed other things that were signs that she wasn’t the same. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I just thought that her behavior patterns didn’t seem as functional as they used to be. For example, we ate dinner out more frequently now that the children were away, but now she wasn’t preparing for dinner on a regular basis. That led me to start a little cooking myself. I also began to take out food from several different restaurants. She wasn’t as careful about clutter around the house. In addition, she was frequently misplacing or losing things.

Kate has always been directionally challenged. Now, however, she was having difficulty remembering how to get to places that she had grown accustomed to going in the past. I would received calls at the office that she was lost and seeking my help getting her where she wanted to go.

By the summer of 2011, both of us began to realize her symptoms were more than what we should expect with aging. We decided she should have a discussion with her doctor at her next appointment in December.  Her doctor recommended that she get a PET scan and arrange a psychological analysis with someone who specializes in diagnosing dementia.

Her doctor arranged these appointments. On January 21, 2011, we both went to see her doctor who was to tell us the results of her scan. That is when we received confirmation of what we had been suspecting a long time. She had Alzheimer’s disease.

We couldn’t imagine the changes that we would face in the years ahead., but we immediately committed ourselves to making the most of our time together. That included taking care of a variety practical matters as well as the really important things like what we wanted our lives to be like in the years ahead.

I will have to say that Kate is the one who was determined to get a diagnosis. I didn’t fully understand what a difference that knowing would make as we planned for the future. It turned out that knowing for sure that she had Alzheimer’s, changed my outlook toward Kate and her behavior. I now understood that she couldn’t control the things she was doing or not doing. I stopped blaming her. Knowing that our time was going to be shorter than I had thought caused me to value more deeply all our moments together. It also led me to take much more initiative in planning things we could do. That included travel, attending many concerts and theatrical performances, eating out more frequently and making mealtime a social occasion, and spending time with friends.

At the time of this writing, I believe Kate is in the early part of Stage 6 of the 7-stage model of Alzheimer’s. (See the Alzheimer’s Association’s website for more information.) I am satisfied that we have achieved our goals. Of course, we haven’t been able to avoid the changes that Kate has made as a result of the Alzheimer’s. We have, however, been able to live full lives.  In this respect, we have been more fortunate than many couples who face this disease. We have enjoyed life throughout our marriage and have been doing the same as we continue Living With Alzheimer’s.

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Bouncing Back After Kate’s Stomach Issue

Ever since Monday afternoon (3 days ago), Kate has felt fine, and she has been in an especially good mood. Yesterday she received the sitter as though they were old friends. She was outside working when the sitter arrived. I was already dressed for the Y. Even though Kate has accepted the sitter each time, I still like to make a formal handoff; so I walked the sitter to the front yard where Kate was sitting down on the edge of the flower bed. I said, “Anita is here. I think I will leave it in your hands.” Kate responded, “I think we can handle it.” I left, once again feeling good that she continues to be so accepting.

One of the things I am learning is that four hours doesn’t allow as much time as I could sometimes use. To go from our house to the Y, exercise, shower and dress takes a full two hours. If I have a meeting, that will take at least an hour. That leaves only an hour to run other errands without counting the drive time home.

This is causing me to consider what kind of schedule I want to work out. There may be times when an extra hour would do the job. Because Kate doesn’t like to stay in one place for 4-5 hours, I might encourage the sitter to take her to a Panera or similar place where they could get something to drink. Kate could work on her iPad. On the other hand, at some point I know that I will want to add an additional day. I don’t feel I am quite ready to leave her four days a week even if it is only for four hours each time.

We are going to get our hair cut in another hour. That is an event that we have worked out well. We go to the same person. We go together. I always let her go first. While she is getting her hair done, I often run short errands. When she has her hair colored, that gives me a little more time.

Tonight we will go to Casa Bella for something new. We have been attending Opera Night the first Thursday of every month for several years. When they added Broadway Night on the third and fourth Thursdays, we started going to one of those. They are introducing Jazz Night on the second Thursday. I think tonight is the first night. Kate is not a jazz enthusiast, but the person for whom the trio is named is a retired professor of music at the university and someone we have known for about 40 years. As always, we will sit with a couple who are in their 90s. The wife is the daughter of the woman who opened the restaurant many years ago. We enjoy their company as well as the music. It should be another great evening.

     

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Symptoms/Seeking explanations

In my previous post I noted that Kate’s recent illness might have been caused by eating yogurt that was past its “sell by” date. This morning I noticed something that may be an even more reasonable explanation. Kate had opened the door to the refrigerator in the laundry room to get some yogurt. There were 2 unopened containers of yogurt on one of the shelves. She looked at one and started to pick it up. I suggested that we dispose of that. Then I picked up the other one and told her we should get rid of it as well. That set off a light bulb. It is not uncommon for her to open a container and start eating it before putting it down on the table next to her side of our bed or on a counter in one of the bathrooms. Sometimes she puts it back in the refrigerator’

These things make me wonder if she might not have left some yogurt out for an extended period of time, put it back in the refrigerator, and then ate it later, perhaps the next day. Maybe the yogurt could have spoiled during that time. I don’t suppose I will ever know the answer to this, but I intend to be more observant with respect to her yogurt from now on.

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Good days/Seeking explanations

This morning when I finished my post I wondered if the day would continue to be a good one. I am happy to report that it has. Kate has been in a good mood all day right up to and including a moment ago. That is when she called out to me asking where I was. I am in the family room listening to music, checking email, and reading Memory People posts on Facebook. I quickly went to the bedroom to check on her. I told her where I was and that I would be joining her shortly. She said, “That’s all right. I just wondered where you were. I was feeling a little lonely. I’m all right now.” All day she has been just that agreeable. It has been wonderful.

I also think I may have discovered the source of her problem over the past several days. I discovered one open yogurt container that was partially eaten with a label showing it was out of date, Today is October 10. It had a sell by date of September 29. I noticed that there was another unopened container with the same date. I threw both of the out. I am surprised that this would be the problem. On the other hand, her upset stomach was minimal. She never threw up. She only had one episode of actually spitting up. Her primary issue was an unsettled stomach. The only thing I could observe was her telling me that she was tired and that she seemed weak and uncomfortable. Since her vitals were all right yesterday, and she came out of it quickly, I suspect it was the yogurt. She may have eaten some of it two days in a row. I can’t be sure as I only found one open container

I feel bad about this as it is my responsibility to take care of the yogurt. I always buy yogurt with the date that gives me the longest time period in which she can eat it. What happened this time was that she went a week without eating as much yogurt as she normally does. I’m just glad that she is all right and that we have had a very good day.

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A Good Day Ahead?

This morning when I returned from my walk at 7:45, Kate was in the kitchen getting herself some juice and yogurt. She was in a pleasant mood and showed no obvious signs of whatever was affecting her over the past few days. I am optimistic that we may have gotten through this one. In some ways, I am sorry that we went to the doctor yesterday for what may have been a false alarm. That meant I had to cancel the sitter at the last minute, drop my own plans for the afternoon, and get the doctor’s office to squeeze us in. On the other hand, the visit gave me reassurance that there wasn’t something seriously wrong unless the lab test identified something. I felt better when we left the office. Of course, the best news has been Kate’s apparent recovery. Now we can move forward with other things.

Among those other things is a trip to Fort Worth a week from today. We are going back for our 55th college class reunion. I am really using that as an excuse to get us back to Kate’s home. I am looking at this as her last trip home. I have arranged for her to see family members and several close friends that go back as far as elementary school.

Last week I exchanged text messages with Kate’s cousin who lives in Dallas. I arranged for us to take her to lunch next Wednesday. Yesterday I got a phone call from one of Kate’s longtime friends from Fort Worth. I had spoken with her a couple of months ago about getting a small group of friends together for lunch while we are in town. She told me that she had made the arrangements and was confirming our plans.

We will also be with family. Our grandson, Brian, is a freshman this year. Our son and his wife will also be there from Lubbock. Kate’s brother and his wife who live in San Angelo be there as well. Another cousin who lives in Fort Worth has arranged for all the family to get together after church on Sunday. I am hoping this will be a special time for Kate although I realize that she will be unable to recognize that this is likely to be her last time home.

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Mood Changes

The answer is (Do you remember the question? ) “yes.” Kate remembered and came out from her room dressed for dinner. She continued to seem very normal. In fact, I would say her mood was better than normal. She was nothing like she was when I first saw her this morning. She had her top on inside out, something that is very common. I told her about it, and she thanked me. We made our way to Chalupas, our favorite Mexican restaurant, where we sat quietly, enjoyed our meal and just being together. I treasure moments like these and wish they could occur more often. I know that is not possible; so I take special pleasure in each of these experiences and feel grateful that they continue to occur.

On the way home from the restaurant, Kate mentioned that she felt sleepy but didn’t want to go to sleep too early. Once arriving at home, she commented again about being sleepy. I took this immediately as a sign that the symptoms of whatever illness she has had the past few days might be returning. Fortunately, no other symptoms materialized

I suggested that I turn on the “PBS Newshour” in the bedroom while she got ready for bed and worked on her iPad. She mentioned that she would like to stay awake until 8:30. I don’t ever recall her being concerned about going to bed too early. I don’t think I have suggested it. I’m wondering what might have prompted this. At any rate, she put on a night gown and came into the bedroom to work on her iPad in her chair, not in bed. A little later, she indicated she was ready for bed. I pointed out that it was 8:28. She had made it to her own appointed bedtime. We ended the day on a high note.

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Symptoms

It has now been an hour since I went outside to get Kate. About 20 minutes ago, she had gotten out of the shower and was walking into our bedroom in her robe. I had thought that she would be dressed for dinner. I went into the bedroom. She said, “I did what you told me.” I said, “What was that?” She said, “To come in here.” (As you may have guessed, I hadn’t given her any instructions about what she was to do. I only brought her in so that we could get a shower and go to dinner.) She then picked up her iPad and asked (by motions, not words) if she could get in bed and work on it. I said that would be fine and that I would check in a few minutes to see if she was ready to eat. I have now done that, and she went back to her room to dress. My expectation is that she will return dressed and ready to go out. Will I be right?

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Symptoms

Yesterday our daughter Jesse called to coordinate plans for a couple of trips to see her and her family. Kate had just taken a shower and was getting dressed. I put the phone on speaker and walked back to her room. I told her it was Jesse on the phone. She said, “”Hi, Jesse.” Then she waved me out so that she could finish dressing. When she was ready, she walked by me as I was talking. Then she went outside to pull leaves. Before her Alzheimer’s, she would never have done this. She would have eagerly gotten to the phone and enjoyed a conversation with her daughter

I called Kate’s doctor’s office shortly after 9:00 this morning. I left a message for the nurse. Her doctor was out of the office today. They said the nurse would get back to me. I then called the agency that provides the sitter who was to have been here at noon. I let them know that we might have to go to a doctor’s appointment and that we might not need a sitter. They understood.

After getting up a second time this morning, Kate got dressed to go out for her muffin. She was moving very slowly and acted the same way she had been a good bit of the past 3 days, but we went ahead to Panera. We stayed for about an hour. When we got home, she went back to bed. At noon, I asked if she felt like eating. She said no. This was the first time she had not wanted to eat at mealtime during her illness. Before I ran out to get a sandwich, I received a call from the doctor’s nurse saying we could see another doctor at 1:30. I told her we would be there

Kate got up when I told her we had an appointment, but she was moving very slowly, once again walking as though she was very unsure of herself. They took us in right away and took her vital signs. Everything looked fine. The doctor asked for me to give an account of what had been going on. I did. She said they wanted to draw blood and get a urine sample and that the results would be available tomorrow

When we left, Kate seemed much better. We stopped by Panera to get her a sandwich and stayed an hour. As we reached the house, she asked, “What can I do?” I told her that she could work in the yard. Then she asked me, “Where?” I told her she could start in the back if she wanted to. Then we both came inside a few minutes. Then she asked, “Now what?” Before I could answer, she asked, “”My room or the bedroom?” I assumed she had decided to work on her iPad inside.” I told her that I thought she had said she wanted to work outside. She said, “”I would like to.” She was outside for about an hour before I went out to see if she wanted to get ready for dinner. She said she was just about to come inside anyway. When she is ready, we will go to Chalupas for dinner.

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Still Not Feeling Well

About 11:30 yesterday morning, I checked to see if Kate wanted some lunch, she indicated that she did. She got up from bed pretty quickly but was moving very slowly and showed no improvement since getting up this morning. We went to our usual place which is about 20 minutes from home. She was very quiet on the way, during lunch, and returning home. As soon as she walked inside, she got into bed again. She stayed there for about an hour, perhaps a little longer. Then she came into the family room where I was seated and asked, “”What can I do?” Before I could answer, she said, “”I could go around front.” It was stated like a question. I told her I thought that might be good therapy. I really meant it as it was the first time since Friday that she had shown any interest in going outside.

She remained outside for about an hour. Then she came in to take a shower. She appeared normal. I said something to her about being glad to see her feeling fine again. She acted as though she had never been sick. When she had dressed, she was ready to get out of the house. We went to Panera for another hour before going to dinner. She was quiet, but she ate well. Upon our arrival home, she put on a night gown and got into bed with her iPad.

At 8:00, she said, “”Good night.” I said I would go in the other room, but she wanted me to stay with her. I did for the next hour or so. Then I went into the family room and reviewed Memory People posts on Facebook. When I went to bed, she woke up and sounded normal. I told her I felt better now. She didn’t understand. I told her that she had felt sick for a couple of days. She didn’t remember.

Now I feel relieved. I was really worried that we might be facing something more problematic. This doesn’t necessarily mean that all is well. A few minutes ago, she came into the kitchen to get some juice and yogurt. She gave me quite a scowl. This is not entirely unusual. She is this way in the morning periodically. I tried to speak to her, but she didn’t want to engage in conversation. She has gone back to the bedroom. I’ll give her time to get going in her own time. It is common for her to go back to sleep after getting up for her juice and yogurt.