What the disease does

Jan spent some time over at Kami's today. She was in a good mood or so it seemed, but after about two hours she started getting into this weepy, almost angry mood. After we came home I hoped that she would take a nap, but upon suggestion, she became angry. How can I tell? Believe me, anyone could tell by the way she looked at me. We sat and watched American Idol as we have in the weeks past and went to bed about 9. She seemed fine but after tucking her into bed I noticed she had tears so I asked what the tears were for. She can't communicate so she doesn't try. I asked more questions about her hurting, did I say something wrong, what happened. She was unable to speak which I know leads to frustration on her part. After a few minutes I determined that I wasn't going to resolve the tears and maybe it would just be best to leave the room and let her get to sleep. That's really hard to do, but most of the time trying to question or reason with her only aggravates the situation.

Severe problems with talking

Sorry about not blogging consistently. Some days a topic or situation comes up that I feel like passing on and sometimes nothing comes up.
I went to a small reunion of football players from Wichita Falls on Saturday and Jan stayed with Kami and she has always enjoyed being with her. This day seemed different. She was very nervous about things, even crying. Sometimes when I deal with this on a day to day basis, I forget to take what is happening and go look at the different stages of Alzheimer's to see if it is a symptom. In the later stages of this disease it goes to severe decline and then very severe decline. In those stages these are some of the symptoms: suspicion, trouble talking, motor skills declining, needing assistance with hygiene, dressing, etc. Jan experiences all of these symptoms and it requires learning to deal with each. The suspicion one is hard to notice, but it is present when I am in the next room or on the phone with someone. She seems to be curious about what I am doing, as though it's something I shouldn't be doing. She has had the problems with speech for quite some time, but it is getting worse. When taking her pills now and we use Ginger-Ale. This has really helped her for some reason. I think it's the high carbonation. I will post a picture from this last week and she looks good in this picture. Thanks for your prayers and encouragement.

Blessing to our door

Today was a good day from many perspectives. We were treated to a visit from one of our elders and one of our ministers, and they brought lunch. Yea,,,,,,,we had a great visit and very good food. Jan was very quiet and didn't try to speak much. She did repeat out loud some of the words she hears from people and that is part of the disease. She will stand right beside me and repeat about every 4th word that I'm saying and I don't think she knows she is doing it. Today she repeated words from our visitors and that may be a first.
We shared a good meal and exchanged some great verses and stories about how the Holy Spirit is working in our lives. We all cried a little, laughed a lot and enjoyed each others company. This is always a great lift for me especially. Jan seems to be aware of the company but unaware of the back and forth conversations. How do people do it when they don't have a church?
Many of you have heard me talk about my coaches. This past week the oldest(86) of them passed. He was my Tech coach, mentor, and friend. I will miss him. His name was John Conley.
Thanks to all for your prayers and comments.

It happens by degrees

I don't know how it is with others who have dementia, so I can only tell you what I see happening with My Jan. Something new seems to happen daily. With Jan she still knows people and most of their names, but she is losing the things she has learned, so that is what I speak to when blogging. If I repeat myself please forgive me. Posting everyday is certainly a challenge. Here is a list of the things that Jan is forgetting: Jan struggles to talk, she needs assistance dressing, bathing, makeup, combing her hair, putting pants on, taking pants off, buttoning clothes, opening a door, seat belts, driving, swallowing pills, using fork, knife, and spoon, opening doors, folding clothes, cleaning, following directions of any kind, writing, dialing, opening a drawer, turning lights on/off, turning any kind of fixture on, pouring herself a drink, remembering when she needs to go, or making any kind of decision. That's probably a short list, but it gives you some idea of how limited her condition has become.
Thanks for you comments, I appreciate knowing who is looking at the blog. I am open to suggestions about how to blog if you have any. I am working to try and add a video of Jan very soon. This picture is about 3-4 years old.

Not even two good hours.

She got up real early today. And when she gets up everybody else naturally has to get up, not a problem. She had a good nights sleep, but nothing seemed to help her today. Tears were frequent and she couldn't say why. I felt so sorry for her. Because she can't talk it's sometimes real hard to figure out what has got her into a downer, and sometimes(most)you can't figure it out. She seemed very weary all day. Maybe it was the rain.

Really losing touch

As I have been saying, the window is closing and there seems to be more and more evidence each day. The medication does not seem to be allowing her have much of a quality of life. Today, we got out of the house about noon, heading to Sam's Club to pick up a few things. I was planning to have lunch at one of our usual places. Taco Bueno, Chic-Filet, but today we chose to go to What-a-burger. They were very busy, but we got our order and sat down as usual. I always ask her what she wants and suggest the chicken strips, but today she chose a hamburger with cheese. I cut the burger in half and I wasn't sure how she was going to take it but, I have to help her. She cannot hold all or even half of the hamburger. First of all it takes two hands and she cannot use her left hand. I fed the entire hamburger to her. She usually tries to do it herself when it gets smaller, but today she wanted me to feed it to her and she had no concerns. Same can be said for dinner, she would barely try to eat her food but would allow me to feed her with no problem. This represents a big change as far as I am concerned. Also, tonight as we were taking her pills, I asked her to turn on the kitchen light, she had no idea where the switch was located.

You can forget the little things

Jan was with me as I was planting some flowers in the front today. In these situations she will say that she will help and I usually give her something to carry if it's small, but today we were nearly through and so I asked her if she wanted to go get the mail. At our place there is not much traffic and I could watch her closely. I really thought she could do it. Here is what happened........
The mail box is at the start of the driveway right? She started away from the house and toward the fence and turned around as if she were already lost, and she was lost. She did not know how to find the mail box, so I started toward her giving her some additional directions and pointing toward the driveway and the mail box. None of this helped so in these cases I know she is totally lost in her own front yard, so not to make her mad or embarrass her I kinda lead her to the mail box and Opened it and gave it to her the mail to carry. She was okay with that, but just another example of that window closing.

Jans Parents

This past week I was out doing some mowing and out of the blue sky, I started thinking about Lewis(Doodle) and Faye and the amount of trust that they had with Jan and I when we were first engaged. Doodle passed back in the 80's If I remember correctly. What I started thinking about was how trusting they were when we were engaged. This is news for everyone except Faye, because no one knows it except Jan and I. It was September 1966 and we had been engaged for my entire freshmen year and her senior year in high school. Doodle and Faye brought her to Lubbock to look for a job. She found a job and she moved to town and stayed in a small room close to campus and worked at one of the banks in town. I was busy playing football and she would take my car and go back and forth to work and I would go to school. She started living in Lubbock in September and we didn't get married until November after the season ended. I never thought about it much but they really had a lot of confidence in us to let us be together for 3 months prior to getting married and having them in another town(Wichita Falls). On this afternoon I could not stop thinking about Doodle.Doodle and Faye always expressed confidence in Jan and I. That afternoon that same feeling came over me. I know it was Doodle talking to me saying that he still had that confidence in me to do what was right and take care of his daughter. He and Faye both had that confidence. God certainly placed them on my heart. It was a great feeling to have these thoughts. It further defines my reason for being and strengthens my purpose.

Cute, Cuter, Cutiest

And here is the youngest King. His name is Cooper Don King. I like that name for some reason, not sure what it is. Cooper is 3.5 years old and is rapidly learning from his older brothers. He may be the biggest talker of the three. As you can see by their pictures, all handsome boys. Nonnie and I are sure that the story will not just be told by the older boys, this one will have some imput. See how well he sat for this picture and this is with children running all over the place..Good Job. We love all the boys very much and these pictures are worth a million....Have a great day to anyone reading this....

Coleman Thomas King

Didn't want to leave out the other little kings. This is Coleman Thomas King and he is the middle boy for Craig and Carrie King. He is in the 1st grade, is making all A's, likes his teacher very much, even though it took him about 4 weeks before he ever spoke to her. Coleman is playing baseball and is fast and knows what to do with the ball. For someone his size he is quick and loves to play. Of course, he is a little king. Nonnie and I are very proud of all the boys. Coleman is warm and friendly, gives his nonnie hugs and to his grandad also. The boys have always been good about hugs and kisses. From the time they are young Craig and Carrie have always asked their children to greet us and say goodbye. Now they do it because they know it is the right thing to do, we sure love it.
Yesterday, Nonnie got her monthly hair cut. We are fortunate to have a young woman who has cut it for years and she is still willing to do it and at the same time she cares for Jan. We praise God for her and her spirit.This has been a fairly good week so far not a real down day yet, yea. Praise God!!!

The Only Granddaughter

Getting Hannah to sit down for a picture is hard to do,but we did it this past Sunday. Hannah is a 7th Grader at Liberty Christian in Argyle, TX. She just turned the big one three or 13, with emphasis on the teen! Good girl,has been working out, running track, lifting weights, playing volleyball, watching the boys, watching the boys, and she doesn't like the fact that I shoot rabbits at my house every once in a while. Very busy girl, very busy. We are excited to watch the things that Hannah will do. She will make a certain contribution for sure to things that she is involved with and we are anxiously watching. We love her and yes she is our only princess.

Easter Sunday with Clayton King

Nonnie sitting outside with Clayton King. Clayton is the oldest of Craig's children(10). he is a good student, plays baseball, and is a good big brother. He also was riding the 4wheeler all by himself on Sunday. He is getting too big too fast. This picture was taken Sunday. The main picture on this blog was taken in 2006.

Easter Weekend

I was really hoping we could have made church, we didn't, but we did watch it online.Kami was a trooper and had the whole family out to her place, lots of people, lots of food and it was good to see them all. Lunch was at 12:30 and they started hiding the easter eggs about 2:00. There was lots of activity and even though it looks like she is doing fine all the conversations and activity of all the children took it's toll on Jan. For no known reason she became very emotional, started crying and wanted to go home. It was very hard for her to tell us what was happening. I got her home, took off her shoes, got a cold towel for her face and tried to get her to lay back and just relax, it was hard for her. Finally about 3 she agreed to go lay down and rest for a while. It turned into a two hour nap. I think all the activity and conversations that were going on around her began to bother her. Kids running around,some loud just took it out of her. So we made it for about 1:30 hours.There is no understanding how this stuff works. Using logic on someone sounds good, but they don't understand logic. All this took place on Saturday, and Sunday we didn't do much.

your comments

I'm real new at all of this but if you will look at the end of each post you will see the word comment. all you have to do is click on the word and a comment box will open for you. I know nothing about signing in or anything like that. I will try to include more pictures.

Birthday Thoughts

I guess I could have left the simple "Thank you's" alone, but something happened to me today so I thought I would share it. In a movie I went to see, the phrase, "her destiny is certain" just popped off the screen to me and I thought about my precious Jan. You and I know that we have a chance for longer life. No, we are not certain, but our chances are good I think. But for Jan her destiny is certain unless they come up with some new medicine. For our friends who sent cards, called or came to see her I am fairly confident that this will be the last birthday in which she will know who called or sent a card. I really didn't get her a gift, except roses and a card, but my card really captured the moment. I thought god helped me find the perfect card and as I read it to her she thought it was the perfect card as well.

Part of the card : In a way, I feel guilty...I mean, here it is your birthday, and yet I'm the one who gets to enjoy the gift.....the gift of you and your love. Thank you !!!!
If you just leave a comment in the comment section I will read it to Jan.

Her Birthday

Kami called and wanted to take her shopping and when I told her she got excited. She sat waiting for the back door to open. She was pretty pumped to say the least. I did inform Kami that this would be harder than it was last time and I think she understood. Kami is the only other person that I will let her be with besides me. They went shopping and took in a movie. When they returned home one of her best friends was here waiting for her. She had brought flowers and a card and just coming by was a blessing to both of us. Then her friend left and then Kami left and I guess all the emotions was just trapped inside her so, the rivers started to flow. I took her shoes off, got a cold towel for her face, put her feet up , but she just had to let some of it out. Oh I forgot we had her mother call and one of our friends from Abilene called and I had a great visit with them both. Carrie called after she had picked up the boys and on speaker phone they wished her happy birthday, that was really cute and those voices were precious. After dinner we opened all of her birthday cards and we had tears again, but tears are pretty common these days. Thanks to all of you who helped make it special. We love you all.......