6-29-2019

I’m not sure what to say about today.

It started badly with Dennis being up nearly every hour throughout the night for varying reasons. By morning I felt sleep deprived and had a headache. He was ready to be up and taken to breakfast somewhere. This was the first time for leaving the trailer since Day 1 so I insisted he clean up first – shave and wash with water heated on the camp stove.

We drove into town and had a good breakfast, but had nothing to do after that so I took him back out to the meadow. For fun (but really because I could no longer stand the mouse smell) I cleaned the sky lights in the trailer. One had a nasty mouse nest in it and I ended up taking all the screens into town with me to clean them with plentiful water. My brother tells me that we have probably stayed in the trailer longer than anyone else, and little by little we are cleaning and fixing what we can.

Maybe I feel a little bit guilty when I leave the meadow to go into town for the day. Sometimes I come back for lunch, or on days like today I take him back around noon and he stays there himself until close to dinner time. He sleeps and eats and doesn’t seem to mind that there’s not much else he can do. At our condo, I enjoy modern day pleasures such as air conditioning and running water. When I come in the evening, it is his best time of the day. He seems pretty normal in his thinking and is usually moving around a little better as well.

We warmed up some soup and sat outside, watching the meadow as we ate. A deer walked across the far end, stopping every few steps to look at us. A hawk did a circle around the meadow and landed on the top of a tall pine, probably scoping out the newly mown field for rodents. There are small birds everywhere and the singing never goes quiet while there is light.

At times I think Dennis realizes that he’s not getting any better on a lasting basis, that there are only fluctuations, although he never voices that himself. Today he said he was glad that we had started long ago to prepare me to take over major responsibilities, like buying our vehicles, driving everywhere, making financial decisions and pretty much planning our future. It was kind of an admission that he doesn’t plan to return to those responsibilities.

At the same time he has lately been restored to hope with the verse from the Bible about nothing being impossible for God. (Matt. 19 verse 26 I think). Having just thought about that and asking for the reference in the morning, he brought it up a little later in a phone conversation with his brother Ron. His brother was surprised when he heard that because, as he was talking with Dennis, he had been reaching into his coat pocket to remove a stone that he carried around with him. Inscribed on the stone was that very same saying “with God nothing is impossible”. When things like this happen they are like affirmations directly from his Heavenly Father and they bring Dennis to tears.

As they say in my online support group, LBD is a ruthless, horrible and very sad disease. The only hope is knowing a God for whom nothing is impossible.