didn’t get home until 10:30 pm. BC Ferries was completely and utterly borked.
The Celebration of Life for Jim Palmer was perfect in terms of weather, company, food, location, and meaning, and it ended with us toasting him and singing “Always look on the bright side of life”. I baked almost 200 biscotti and nobody et them so I took them to Barry and Jackie and my fOlks.
Hi Glenn it was great talking to you and sharing space. scrivener r u l e s
Hi Leo
Hi Linda
Hi mOm
Hi pOp
Hi Dave
Content warning – assault, dementia, me being over sensitive.
I am burnt toast now after 36 hours non stop with a dementia sufferer. I have seen and experienced things this past two days that I am still having difficulty believing and processing. I am trying to be light about it because if I said, “I haven’t been that scared since that time someone sexually assaulted me,” … people would think I was trying to make it about me.
I was not sexually assaulted, it was a physical assault while I was trying to sleep… and an *accident*… because he couldn’t tell the difference between the side of my face and a blanket. He literally dug four fingers into my face and pulled, scragging my left eyelid and the corner of my mouth. Buuuut there were no marks on my face the next morning so he told me to quit bugging him about it. I wasn’t asking him to apologize, I was asking him to understand why I might be upset. “It’s in the past,” he said. He doesn’t have the capacity to understand how that inability to see someone else’s injury might be an issue, so I have to make allowances.
And he drank porter with our late supper and got up three times to pee and each time got turned around and lurched all over the hallway and guest room and I had to get up and literally lead him back to his bed, which is when I found out that he has NO LOW LIGHT VISION AT ALL. He was stumbling around naked in the dark in a strange house and then I had to fight his bedclothes for him just to get him settled for sleep again. He walked off with my keys the next morning because he couldn’t tell the difference between our keychains (mine has a fucking three inch yellow plastic tag on it and his has a flashlight!!) and I spent fifteen minutes on my hands and knees looking under my bed before I realized what must have happened…. It’s been absolute hell. He didn’t shower before the trip or change his clothes, just got right back into the dirty ones this morning. He couldn’t take his socks off (I had to help), and then he couldn’t get his shoes back on. He’d leave toes on the wrong side of the shoe and shove and not understand why he couldn’t put his shoes on. (I advised him to put them on the ground instead of holding the shoe in his hand, and that finally worked.) I had to partially dress him in various ways over the course of the weekend, and tell him that he’d clipped his reading glasses to the shoulder belt instead of his clothes. He refused to take his medication no matter how or when he was reminded and he lied about what time of day he normally takes it when I tried to establish what was going on on the ferry trip home. So he hasn’t had any BP medication in two days. There was LOTS of other stuff that scared and sorrowed me but I hope you can understand I’ve recounted the worst of it.
I have to mention he bought me a snack and paid for the ferry ride home and he made me laugh very hard a couple of times. It wasn’t all bad. But the things that were good seemed like a lily in the grip of a rotting corpse.
Got an hour GOD I wanted so much MORE with my parents and turned around and went back to Vancouver, and it was 6 1/2 hours before I got back to my own place because as mentioned BC Ferries was borked. Buster was ‘extatic’ to see me and insisted on being brushed, which I did.
Got about an hour with Uncle Barry, and I could have had a day.
Paul’s fine. He’s been delivered home. Everything the kids have said about how continually traumatizing it is to live with him now appears kindly and low key. There is no way in hell he should try to live with anyone and he should be in supportive housing, not that he’s likely to find any in Vancouver without a heroic effort on his family’s part. His ability to hold a conversation is not accompanied by any ability to plan and virtually no ability to execute, so he’s like a witty parrot.
Keith was fantastic though, in all respects. Although he did leave his jacket in the car. He’ll need something to go home so mOm if you can spot him getting a new jacket I’ll reimburse you…. or if there’s a loaner, that would work. Maybe the octopus sweater? I think he’d look awesome in it and pOp won’t likely wear it again.
