Posted 5-5-19 Not much to report on mom or the Sweet 17 from this weekend, as of yet. Unlike when you don’t hear from your younger kids for a couple minutes as they are playing, a few minutes of quiet isn’t a sign of nefariousness or eminent explosions of emotion with memory unit patients, at…
Author: Mark Applegate
Right Under My Nose
Posted 5-3-19 Don’t remind me of hindsight’s visual acumen. I know… 🙁 BUT, looking back, I should have noticed mom’s dementia getting worse years ago. If I would have had my self-focused head out of my rear enough to take the time to think about it, I would have been more prepared! I would have…
The Eyes Speak Volumes When There are No Words
Posted 5-2-19 One of the interestingly woeful things about mom’s condition is the devolution of her speech. Not so much the words themselves (largely word salad/Brain Bandit Babble), but the gauntlet that she seems to go through to make it happen. It is truly heartbreaking. Three Significant characteristics: She searches everywhere (hard) with her eyes…
Riders on the Storm
Posted May Day, 2019 I won’t say that we were professional storm chasers growing up, but the Applegate household had an semi-unintuitive fascination with tornadoes. We were that family. We were prepared to jump in our house’s crawlspace, accessible through the garage floor, or equally so to zoom east just ahead of the twister to…
…Overheard at the Unit, Over Some Analog Cornbread
Posted 5-1-19 I was discussing Noah’s Ark a couple days ago at the nursing home with my stepdad. The topic came up because there was a 7-consecutive-day stretch of heavy rain forecast for our area, and everyone was talking about flooding. A Sweet 17’er heard our conversation and was quite interested. My stepdad asked “I…
Just When You Thought It Was Safe…
Posted 4-30-19 The shark-infested tidewaters receded yet again and all there is now are a few quiet clownfish, a happy but shy school of neon tetras and an occasional grumpy pair of bettas bickering over who gets the last saltwater Ho-Ho at the ole memory unit. (Oh, and don’t get me on a rant about…
A 5280-Foot-Tall Wall
Posted 4-29-19 “Hitting the Wall” can mean many things in life: To the Cardinals over the weekend, it is a way for a young player to get hurt. To a runner it can mean a metaphorical wall that you run into, often at about mile 20-22, where you feel like you can no longer run….
Mom is Brain Tired Too
Posted 4-28-19 I had a nice visit with mom yesterday, I suppose. She was asleep, face-down on the table. I stayed there for 15 minutes, talking to her as she drifted in and out of Sleepdale. She then sort of got some consciousness going and stayed at a 45 degree angle and said a few…
Brain Tired
Posted 4-27-19 I am pretty booked up today and tomorrow, but I have a busy week of posts lined up next week. I deeply admire 24/7 caregivers. I spent 8-10 hours directly hanging out with and serving mom this week and my brain is already deflated (the 65 hours at work may have contributed too)….
Keeping Score
Posted 4-26-19 My dad and I went to see the Springfield Cardinals game last night. The Cardinals, the AA minor league team for the great St. Louis Cardinals franchise, didn’t disappoint in an 8-0 drubbing of the Amarillo Sod Poodles. (BTW…a “sod poodle” seems to be some sort of a nickname for a prairie dog)….