Aunt Charlene came from Colorado to spend some time with Cathy again. She flew in on Sunday & is staying until the 9th. (We are so Thankful for her help!) Gayle came & picked Cathy up here Sunday at noon. She was so excited to see Charlene, at 8 am she put her coat & sunglasses on and paced from window to window until Gayle came. The surprising thing when he came was that she left her suitcase & things in her room (she normally has them waiting by the door or already packed into one of our vehicles) ... she headed straight out to the van and got in. I brought her in to finish lunch... she just ate one bite and threw the rest in the trash & headed back out again. I stopped her and carried her bags to her. She grabbed one of her bags and put it back in the room & then headed back towards the van again. ??? She had a blank look on her face... I am not sure what she was thinking. I explained that she was going home for a week & Charlene was visiting. She just looked at me... I am pretty sure that all these back & forth trips are confusing her a bit.
When Gayle came she was angry at him again. He called on the drive and said she had settled down once they were on the road. I called later that night & he said that she was angry at him again. Charlene had to try & help settle her down to go to bed. It took them 2 hours even after her Trazadone to get her to sleep... usually she is asleep within a half an hour. Charlene even layed down with her... but she would pop back up & start the same old routine again.
I have talked to Charlene everyday this week... Cathy is still very restless. She is going through things, opening cupboards, emptying cupboards, burning things (Charlene thinks she has burned some clothes again)... I mentioned to hide the matches - but she keeps finding them. On Tuesday & Wednesday morning Cathy called me from her cell phone... this was VERY surprising. Over the past few months she has forgotten how to use it. She will push numbers and just look at it, I will take it from her and see numbers like this: 81421. I know that once in the past 6 months she has called Brad & Toby. But I am not sure how she did it, but she did. All she could say was, "Beth." I talked to her a few minutes telling her what we had been up to. Once I handed the phone to Brad to talk to her, he started out by asking her questions... but she can't answer & gets frustrated... he quickly tried to think of another thing to say. (It is hard to talk on the phone to someone who can't talk back) I then tried to say, "Can I talk to Charlene?" But she couldn't seem to understand that either time... eventually Charlene would see that she was on the phone & get on to talk to me.
Last week I put a call in to Dr. Loepfe's office (he was on vacation, I talked to his nurse & she said he would call when he returned) ... hopefully he will have some ideas on medicine changes that may help... however, we know that not much can. He called back Wednesday afternoon. He mentioned a few changes that we are going to try, he also felt we should keep Gayle & Cathy apart, & we discussed the fact that we have been getting things in order for the nursing home - so when it is time we have options readily available. Even though we know that there is not much he can for this Disease, it is comforting to know that he is available to us for advice & support.
Charlene said that things were going fairly well yesterday. Gayle was heading out of town for work & going to be gone most of the time now. She noticed that Cathy seemed less upset after he left. However, as the day goes by she gets more restless... Charlene mentioned Sun downers. Jean was stopping by again last night to visit. Gary had been up to say Hello & give her the message to call me regarding Dr. Loepfe's call. So Charlene plans on implementing the medicine change today.
So... I have to admit that the past few days has been Wonderful for our family. Brad has been home studying for work, he has 2 tests this week to renew his Engineer's License at work. So we have spent alot of time together as a family. We even got Brad out to the movies last night! I have been able to work on a few things at home that are hard to get done when Cathy is around. The kiddos & I have enjoyed playing games they got from Christmas & just hanging out together. I feel guilty saying that I am enjoying our break. But I truly am enjoying it.
I head up to Mayo on the 10th to meet Gayle & Cathy for the research group appointment. And then she will come home with us. After that... I don't think we will do much traveling back & forth anymore. She is progressing so quickly & it seems to confuse her even more. Plus with her anger towards Gayle... it's just not a good idea. I have a feeling our next trip to Wisconsin will be her move to the nursing home... I am not excited for that. And I am hopeful that we can help put it off a bit longer. Time will tell.
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