An odd life

 I realised earlier that I've double booked myself on Friday, not once but twice.  Both in the morning and in the afternoon in fact.  The morning was the one which took me by surprise.  

I'd arranged to meet a friend for our weekly walk and she'd found somewhere new for us to go so I was most definitely looking forward to it.  However even as I looked at the map to find the route I was simultaneously planning to get Ash to a coffee morning for retired police officers at exactly the same time.  As I'm sure you realise it's not going to be easy to get him there without stress being involved so the planning was being done carefully and at no point until today did I realise that there was a conflict of interest.  

The coffee morning is for Ash's benefit and the walk is for mine but only one of those could happen and I wonder if you can guess which had to be abandoned?  Yes, of course, it was the walk.  I sent the necessary message and said I found it very odd that I could plan two events for exactly the same time without realising the problem at which point the friend pointed out that my life as a whole is odd at the moment anyway.

I didn't have to time to think about it at the time but have been pondering that comment ever since and of course she's right but when you're in the middle of something you don't notice a) how odd life is and b) how much your life has changed.

At this point I'm going to give you an outline of today's events but before I do I'd like to remind you that in pre-dementia days Ash and I very much did our own thing.  We each had our own activities and friends, we shared a social life and loved spending time together but we were very, very independent.  Today was nothing like that as you'll see.

This morning I was on video calls from 9am which confused Ash immensely to the point where he had no idea what he was doing or what he was able to do.  Luckily the first call finished just as he was about to have a meltdown and, also luckily, I had a break of an hour and a half before the next one.  I relaxed my whole body and sauntered through to the kitchen to make a coffee and look through photos which is always a good distraction at the moment.  Those two things instantly made a difference so then I said that I could do with some help with further wood clearing.  We went out, filled the wheelbarrow and took it down to the bonfire for burning by others.  He wheeled the barrow but I had to go with him to show the way.  We filled and emptied the barrow twice and then the third time he trundled off by himself without saying anything.  Assuming that he now knew the way (I know, I know) I let him go only for him to come back minus the barrow to ask where he should take it.

This afternoon I'd planned to join a Dementia UK webinar about planning for the future but there was confusion to be dealt with yet again so I cancelled my registration and instead we went to town to buy vegetables and once again the distraction did the trick.

The thing is that all of this seemed perfectly normal while it was happening.  I've rearranged two whole days this week without even thinking about it just to make sure that Ash's wellbeing stays on track and it's only now I realise how odd this looks from the outside.

I know he can't help it and I don't begrudge any of it (well, not much of it and even then only very occasionally) but is there any wonder that there are days I dream of the time this is all over and I'll get my life back.

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