The rest of the week went with some ups and downs of emotional and physical strengths. This chronic Lyme/co-infection stuff does that to you; puts you on a roller coaster of one good day and two or three down days, making you use all of your will power to just get up and move. Add to that the pains, and discomfort it brings physically to the body.
#2 and I are at home today while the others are at church. She is having Lyme fatigue this morning, after a bout of Lyme arthritis earlier this week. She says she maybe having another bout of aseptic meningitis.
As for the elder, he is in a Mr. Lewy phase today. He can be a bit more difficult when he is like this because of the hallucinations. We had agreed to eliminate nightshades from his diet. Unfortunately, we either forget, didn’t get the memo, or some other legitimate excuse, such as poor planning. For the past three days he has been this way; for the past four days he has had tomatoes….Seems we forgot last night in our rush to get dinner done that pizza is mostly tomato sauce. (At least the way we make it.) There have been other times when he has demanded tomatoes from one of my daughters as they were being peeled. BTW, this is tomato season in our garden. So I have suggested that we keep the tomatoes out of the kitchen and peel them in the back bathroom sink. And I plan to stick a big note on the kitchen mirror that says—NO TOMATOES!! To help reminds us when we are busy. No tomatoes, no eggplant, (I haven’t tested peppers yet)….brings on Lewy Body Dementia hallucinations!!
As an example of how Lewy Body Dementia is different from Alzheimer’s, a few minutes ago he started demanding something….Because his speech can be a bit garbled it can be difficult to discern what he is saying (other times his speech is very clear) A lot of times I will stand in the other room and try to listen to his words, sometimes the distance helps me hear more discern better what he is trying to say. After asking him if he was saying “fly” or “fire” which I got two clear “no”. He asked me to move him around the corner, which means more into the kitchen. I came back to settle down at the computer and then he started to demand again something that sounded like fly or fire….I asked the daughter if she could discern and she thought it sounded like fly or maybe pie. And as is my habit at times like this I start rhyming words that might sound like the word I am hearing and look around the room to see what he might be thinking about…
Bingo, fly rhymes with pie…pizza stones were left out on the counter to dry last night and have not been put away yet….Pizza PIE!! He had pizza pie last night!! I offered him a slice of banana bread and that seems to have taken care of it the “fly”. He has since requested to be moved back into the alcove.
He has slept very well the past few nights or either we have learned to tune most of it out. He at least is not calling out for help in the middle of the night. We appreciate the prayers of those that have lifted this up to our God. For Hubby to be able to sleep most of the night has been a blessing beyond words. Last night was an exception. Not so much because Hubby had to get up but because every time he would start to drift back to sleep his dad would talk a bit and re-awake him. I had one night earlier this week when I missed two or three hours of sleep for the same reason.
On different topics:
We finally have our green beans coming on full force (about 3-4 weeks too late) and will be picking every last one of them in hopes to get maximum poundage before the fall begins to set in….I learned last year that plants KNOW when it is time to shut down, regardless of warm temperatures.
The tomatoes have finally begun to ripen…but unless it is warm into the fall months I am not expecting a bummer crop this year despite the amount of plants I have out. I hope I am wrong.
And I did make sure Momma got a carrot. Momma does not like carrots but I took her some and she accepted one. Mostly because someone told her that I had some beautiful carrots! ;D Dad loves carrots and they are part of our regular meals on wheels (feet) to him.
The reality of this year is that it has been too cold, one day last week we had a record setting low with a high of 70 degrees at the end of July. Now that we are going into August we can expect a lack of rain although we are at a point where we really need it. Crops and garden.
Well, I will end this here. I have had one distraction too many in the writing and simply cannot stay focused on where I began all of this hours ago.