Delusional

 The 5th wheel trailer is gone! It sold to a nice 21 year old named Jareth. He’ll be very happy living in this,  I’m sure. 

It’s been a pretty good day. There’s been the usual endless questions about the age of DanaRiley, where I got her from, how long I’ve had her, how often do you feed her, what is todays’s date, what are we having for dinner, do you have a favorite sibling, which brother is the oldest, and many, many questions about my parents. There’s the many repeated stories about she and her sister Carol growing up, how her mom and dad had tough lives, stories about her husband Jerry, her kids Greg and Abbey, her sweet granddaughters Michaela and Kylie, her cousin Doug, and then there’s Ducky, Michaela’s dog, who Alene adores. 

As Abbey has said, it’s exhausting.  

I thought for a long time that Alene wasn’t doing too bad with her dementia. I’d talk to her on the phone for 15-20 minutes 2 or 3 times a week and she seemed pretty normal. Yes, she’d repeat herself some, but, okay, that’s to be expected, isn’t it?

Now I’ve lived with her for almost two weeks and I see how developed her dementia is. Then today, her cousin Charla called her and BAM, it became clearer to me. When she was talking to Charla, Alene sounded perfectly normal, like she didn’t have dementia. She was her old self. If Charla is reading this blog, she probably thinks I’m delusional after talking to Alene. 

That’s what it’s been for me for the last year…Alene sounding like she’s perfectly ordinary on the phone and with those she lives with, the gloves come off, so to speak. 

My love, respect and admiration to those who live with someone with dementia. 

By the way, Alene thought she was 77 tonight. It’s the closest she’s been to her true age.