The up and downs of living with dementia

On Sunday I spent a couple of hours quietly clearing moss from the cobbles at the back of the house while Ash spent his time watching 'The Chase' on tv.  This is something he would never have done BD (before dementia).  He was always the first to be outside getting on with jobs and I still can't quite believe that before I understood what was happening to him I thought he was just being lazy when he sat playing games on his computer.  Now I just find things to do and keep myself busy leaving him to be content with life.  The up side of this is that he's started coming to tell me what's going on in whatever programme he's watching and on Sunday he made me laugh out loud at least three times with his comments.  In fact he was so much like his old self that I almost forgot.  In contrast I came home yesterday evening after a day sorting out my mum, put the tea in the oven, set the timer on the cooker and then rang Jake to tell him how well my efforts with his grandma had gone (and let me tell you that it was nothing short of a miracle).  While I was talking the timer started pinging.  I carried on talking assuming Ash would switch it off but nothing changed.  When I went through to the kitchen he was staring at the cooker not knowing what to do.  This afternoon we decided to give the healthy option a miss and have fish and chips for tea.  At the same time we were running out of milk so I suggested getting the milk later when going to pick up the fish and chips.  This meant writing it all down in the ever present little book, followed by pacing of the floor, followed by looking at the note in the book and on and on until I suggested going to get the milk immediately then making the same ten mile round trip to get the fish and chips an hour later.  This worked for Ash and the confusion beat a retreat.   Reminders if ever I needed them that this is AD not BD.

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