As some of you may have noticed (those of you among my literal dozens of followers), I haven’t posted much for a while. Not that I ever had the best update schedule, but I hadn’t been silent either.
So, here’s what happened for anyone following any of my sites.
First, going on two years now, Covid hit. You probably noticed it. The main thing that affected me was that I switched from being in the office to working from home every day.
You would think that my being at home all the time would have improved my output. Well, not really.
My schedule was always that I would leave work and then find a bar to sit at for an hour or so. I’d have a beer or two and write a bunch of words. It was fine.
Suddenly, I was at home all the time. And my wife was starting to need me to help her more. We’ll get to more of that in a bit. So I lost my hour or so of free time every day. And my updates dropped.
That was March or April. Then, in August, my father suddenly had to go to the hospital for colon cancer. I had to take care of my mother.
Who, I discovered, had severe Dementia. My father had kept that from me. I spent several weeks trying to stay with her, but she would do things like try to wander out of the house at 2 in the morning looking for “the man who is going to take me home.” It was difficult.
When my father did get back home from the hospital, I tried to get them to move into assisted living, but he refused. “Your mom is more comfortable here,” he kept saying.
Then, about a month later, my wife started having problems.
It was subtle at first. She would come to find me and ask me to change the channel on the TV for her. I had to fix dinner for us because she was confused about how to use the oven. We went out when we could, but… Covid.
Then things got worse. I’d be in our home office working, and she would come in asking me to “take her home.” When I pointed out that we were home, she got confused.
A bit later, I would finish up and leave the office to fix dinner, and she would come up to me saying, “There was a man in that room all day!” I tried to explain to her that the person there was me, but I’m not sure she understood.
This was now early 2021, and my office had reopened and asked for people to come in voluntarily. We had clients coming to the office, and I think they thought it looked bad to have a completely empty space. So I started going in twice a week.
I’ll confess. By this point, she was coming into my home office to talk to me, ask me what she needed to do, or ask who I was that it was being really disruptive. Going in helped me get work done.
Then, one day, I was at the office, and my neighbor called. My wife had shown up at her front door asking, “What do I need to do?”
I came home and stayed there. I couldn’t risk leaving her alone anymore.
A few weeks later, we had gone out for dinner and had gone upstairs to lie down a bit after dinner. I was half-asleep when she suddenly stood up, saying “I can’t do this!” and left the room. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but I had overeaten and was really sleepy. So I almost immediately fell back asleep.
I woke up when her phone, still on her bedside table, rang. I tried to ignore it. Then my phone rang. I answered it.
It was her sister. She was asking, “Your wife is at my house and isn’t sure why she is here? What is going on?”
I went downstairs. The door to the garage was standing open. Her car was gone. And the garage door was standing open.
I went to her sister’s and tried to talk to her. She didn’t want to come back home. She wanted to stay where she was. A few other family members, including her son, showed up. We talked for a while.
We decided that she needed to talk to a specialist of some kind to figure out what was going on. We made an appointment for the next week.
She never got there.
The following weekend, she and I watched TV and decided to go to bed. I had gone to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and when I exited, she started looking at me in horror. She screamed for me to get away from her, started hitting me until I backed off, then started putting her shoes on.
I was trying to ask her what was going on, but she kept yelling insults at me. Then, she ran out of the house screaming for help.
The police showed up. Paramedics showed up. A fire truck showed up for some reason.
Things could have gotten complicated, but the police figured out what was going on quickly. They recommended that I take her in for examination.
Her daughter and I took her up to the hospital. On the way, she freaked out again when she didn’t know who I was. Then she did the same thing again at the hospital.
We had to put her into a psychiatric hospital until they stabilized her. She was ruled to be a danger to herself and others.
After two weeks at the hospital, she was moved into a memory care facility. She is diagnosed with Dementia brought on by Early Onset Alzheimers.
There is nothing I can do but take care of her. The place she is in is not cheap, but they are taking better care of her than I can.
I visit her as often as I can. I ask if she knows who I am, and she just laughs and takes my hand.
She doesn’t really talk anymore. She seems to enjoy being around me, but we don’t interact.
It’s hard.
I’m having to sell the house. Partially because I don’t need 4 bedrooms, plus an office, plus a sunroom, for just me and a dog. Partially because I need to cut expenses to keep taking care of her.
And partially because, in my mind, this is still “her” house. She was living here when we got married.
I need my own place. I have to start a new life, going forward, without her.
She’s safe. She is somewhere that she will be taken care of. So now, I need to start thinking about myself.
So yeah, I’ve been a bit busy. I’m trying to move forward again. I need to start forging a new life for myself. Hopefully, I’ll get back to here soon.
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