Why blog?

My best friend in Mass. tells me that she keeps up with me via my blogs.
Oh boy! Oh boy!
Why do I blog?
First of all it started because husband's family were in denial about his condition.
Every phone call was sort of questioning me if I was telling the truth.
Why? because on the phone he could make conversations talking about the childhood and all "seemed" well.
So I started the blog in order not to have to write to them what was going on.
Did it help? I do not think so.
Then the habit started to pour out myheart and soul in these pages when I was
down and out.
So , dear Lee, you read about my worst times.
Blogging was quite new to me but I am a fast typist so that seemed better for me
than doing my own diaries.
I would put them in a safe place on my desktop or some other computer file and then forget about it and erase them when I did a clean up.
The blogs also remind me of other days when things really shook my cage and how I got out of it that particular day.
Yesterday, for instance I was quite angry at the man who now lives here.
As I wrote before I was sort of nursing tomato plants even with the water restriction and son was very proud of his watermelons growing so well.
So, yesterday the water melons got picked by old B. problem is they were the
size of a golf ball.
I was not a happy camper and figured that I can still go and buy a watermelon but
that was not helpful to my reasoning.
He had not a clue that he even did it and what they were.

Pondering over my last 10 years I noticed that Alzheimer affected me tremendously.
It is not about just learning to deal with it or ignore it.
It affects your very inner core.
For instance I had my RED period. I am not a "red" person. Never wear it and just
do not buy "red" trinkets except for an elf or two with a red hat on , they are in the garden blending with the roses.
About 5 years ago, I NEEDED red color in my life. I bought a large print full of poppies and hung it over the bed. I bought wine colored curtains for the bedroom ,they even have little red beads on them, very appropriate for a bordello but not for my bedroom and I loved them.
I was looking everywhere for vibrant , jump into your face colors.
That was 5 years ago.
Now I want beige curtains like I had before. Too bad I gave them all to the Goodwill as my budget does not exactly allow another set of curtains and drapes.
What's up with the colors? I asked my children.
One said :You are angry and the other said that I want to cheer myself up.
I have not a clue.
I know that everything inside of me has changed to and fro on almost everything I knew
before Alzheimer came to stay.
My enormous faith changes from day to day.
Why am I being punished like this? (Old Catholic coming out again)
Why does he have to finish life in this slow motion with all his joie de vivre and
artistic ability gone.
Where is he now? Does he see people he talks to?
Will I be around long enough to take care of him.?
Often it is more about MOI than about him and then the guilt sets in.
What kind of a wife am I? Did he not take care of me with so much love all these years?
Indeed MOI is leaving me too. I am so often exhausted from seeing him do the same thing minute after minute. He goes into the fridge every 3 to 5 minutes in a day.
He always wants to drink, whatever he finds he drinks or puts it into a glass and hides it
behind something and gets another glass etc..etc..
so what is so bad about that?
Nothing really but when you watch it 24/7 , when you cant get into the bathroom because that is the next stop every 5 minutes, when you can't be understood all of this adds up.
With a child you can say"no more drinking for the next 30 minutes". That does not work
with Alzheimer, he does not know what you said the second after you said it.
My joy time is when I lay down in bed at night and try and sleep.
The bad time is at 3 a m when I wake up and decide the monsters will get me.
The money monsters, the "what is next " monster, how can I keep my sanity monster....
about 5 o clock I am exhausted and think that 7 will be here soon and I have to go to work.
Then I worry if my son will hear him if he would fall or have a stroke or go out.

The man said it at the Alzheimer group some 8 years ago now:
Nothing in your life will ever be the same again!
I did not want to hear it, now I know better.

Dear friend in Mass. you have known me forever, I am a fighter, I am a survivor,
I am holding on. Not to worry