Which relationship has taught you the most about yourself?
One should learn as a child, but the parent-child relationship is far and away not conducive to this kind of self-reflection. We are not ready.
We are not yet equipped to absorb who we are. Mind you, my parents were around into my adulthood. I lost my mother just after I turned 40. Too soon. Yet, I was old enough to exercise self-knowledge and also to benefit from her wisdom.
Did I? I don’t know.
We learn a little bit about ourselves as we roll along, I think.
It would seem inevitable that we gain self-knowledge from each and every relationship.
A provider is giving me a hard time over my healthcare proxy. They’ve refused to discuss Burt’s plan of care until they vet my proxy. This morning, while mulling my frustration, I thought oh come on. I have the marriage certificate.* That should be proof enough. [*Side note: a beautiful copy of this docunent arrived […]
The truth is we don’t step in until we have to, and sometimes that means we miss a thing or two. I wish I had known before I knew and advocated more vigorously when I had that gut feeling. (Click on Advocacy above for context.)
via Photo Challenge: Bridge My local bridge always smelled of white bread baking when I was growing up and we came over it from Queens. In those days, it was just the 59th Street Bridge, now it’s named in honor of one of the city’s recent mayors, Ed Koch. The bakery on the Queens side […]
I take my respite seriously. I’ll admit sometimes too seriously. Time away from the unusual thinking fostered by LBD is my golden ticket to staying sane. Or so I fervently believe. I take that time each weekday. On the weekends, we have help so I can have less hands on with the care. All of […]
via Daily Prompt: Pamper It does not come naturally to me, taking care of myself as if I were a porcelain doll. Or perhaps some fragile nymph in need of solicitude. Perhaps I am being overly censorious. I do not mean to demean those who take an interest in such things, and themselves. I am admiring […]
Not only is Burt emotional (as documented here before), but he is capable of having a multitude of conflicting feelings at once. It was the best. It was the worst. All on one occasion. He has no filter, so he isn’t shy about letting me have it. Nor in the least non-plussed at sharing a […]
My mantra all through the LBD journey with Burt was that I made sure to have time for myself. I had help so I could leave Burt in good hands while I went to the gym or out to lunch with a friend.
I needed the time to feel normal because Burt’s world as the dementia progressed had gone upside down. I could spend time in his world, happily, caring and very much refreshed.
The aides were companions for him, and meant to keep him safe. His tenuous hold on reality had been an early recognizable symptom.
Later, I would find out that there may have been other warning signs before the diagnosis. Before there had been any call for a diagnosis. Burt had experienced double vision a couple of years before. We had raced around town trying to find a cause and a cure.
It’s futile reviewing missed signals. I couldn’t have known that double vision or his admission that he was confused when he came out of the park on a walk would lead to LBD.
Once you know, you know. That’s fine. And it’s stressful. And the disease is also progressive. Hence the need for self care.
Then, there’s invaluable memories of the times Burt would beam when he recognized me; how much he missed me while I was away. His love was soothing, and it gave me the supportive underpinning so like self care.
As a caregiver, it’s easy (and way too common) to feel alone on the journey. In many ways, we are. The idea that no one is coming to our rescue when we are in the throes of a Lewy episode; the feeling that the worst moments are the ones only we can handle is provocative. […]
For a while, Burt only ate either lemon meringue tarts or Madeleine cookies. I took his love of the latter with a grain of irony that they were the snack of choice in Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu.★
My secret irony was the search for that lost time, a thing that my love would never regain. Time runs on a different track for the person with dementia. It can be exhilarating or very disconcerting.
Burt and I never fully adjusted to the mishmashing of time.
