Since my last daylog, I spent another weekend in my daughter's shoes, while my husband went off to the Zoo. Hockey tournaments for two of my three grandsons and a blast from the past, having rotating 16 and 17 year old guys in the house. Ignoring sprained ankle, I cooked numerous feasts at three hour intervals, not including snacks they made themselves, with the accompanying dirty dishes, strewn about the house like future rose petals, if they take my old grandma advice. Which they don't, but are honest about their confusion. God, I love them all.
I asked one thing from my husband's daughter, to please contact me prior to driving him home, since I didn't know when the hockey tournaments would be over and would not be at our house. So, on Saturday night, after leaving several messages on her phone, I received a call from my husband, locked out of our house. He always takes his keys, but didn't this time and had to rely on his pipe-cleaning penknife to basically slit a screen and break into his own home, in the dark.
I went from Grandma to Furious Wife in seconds, then asked if his daughter was still there. Thankfully, she was, and I told him to have her and her boyfriend drop him off at my daughter's. And that's what they did, drop him off. No stopping in, no making sure I was there; he just appeared, tired, confused, and hungry. I made him food; he joined the movie-watching contingent, then fell asleep, safe.
This is not intended as a rant, nor a pity party. This is entirely new territory for me. I'm trying to navigate with as much grace, intelligence, and humour as possible. I've found talking and writing not to be especially cathartic for me, so I hope my ragtag record of Alzheimer's events will possibly help someone else. Since I still don't do Facebook or a blog or twitter, this place is it.
Arriving home, my sons got the 2 day version of the flu. I got the full-blown-think-I'm-gonna-die-ten-day version. I forcefully recovered to accompany my husband to the gala, which was so over-the-top, in terms of decadence and chandeliers, too much light and cell phone bidding during dinner, chateaubriand and escarole salad, dessert chocolat-mousse-plated with two blackberries avec a drizzle in the shape of a raspberry fractal. Open bar, which while I was in the ladies' room, my husband procured two rum and Cokes, with invisible Coke. Fuck the meds; this was his night.
My efforts to get his original writing in the program brochure succeeded, so it was known that he has Alzheimer's. It was very touching to hear people tell him how he had quietly and profoundly changed their lives, concerning the environment, beyond their own problems. At one point, I felt as though he was attending his own wake. My elder son accompanied us, which turned out to be very helpful, since the large crowd and my adverse tendency towards noise, too much light, and too many people tipped the balance...and I had two glasses of red wine.
At one point, my husband said to a small group of people, "If it wasn't for my wife, I would be wearing a weird oufit, since I'm color blind as well. Isn't she beautiful?" For most of our marriage he didn't compliment me, thinking I would become over confident and have affairs, based on my looks. Twenty seven years later, I reminded him of our vows. Forsaking all others. For better or worse. In sickness and in health. Til death do us part.