dementia

Father’s Day 2019

/ Shirleyjdietz / Leave a comment

6-16-2019

Today was Father’s Day. It was not a bad day, but in some ways a sad day.

The better part was that we left the house early for church, ate breakfast afterwards at a restaurant, and then stayed outside away from electric fields all day. At least that was the way I saw it.

Dennis talked to both his daughters on the phone today and listening to those conversations was the sad part. He has changed so much, even in the last two weeks – rambling, sometimes confused, distracted by clouds or his own thoughts. In his account of the day he mentioned a major mistake he (we) made. I didn’t agree, but it made no difference.

I decided that since we had such a nice rest in the truck the day before, why not just drive our truck out in the wetland meadow behind the barn and he could spend as much time there as he wanted. Why not, indeed? So we did that, found a nice shade tree to park under, repositioned the truck several times, rehearsed how to open or shut windows and then I left. He could call me on his phone if he needed anything – I would be only a short distance away.

He stayed there several hours while I did my cleaning job and only called me twice. I went out to check on him and he was so busy talking on the phone that I left again and went to the house to do chores.

His next call to me was about his mistake. He hadn’t been thinking and had wasted a few hours already by not being grounded. The truck, having rubber tires, is not grounded unless a chain or something metal is touching the earth. He was having to get out of the truck and put his feet down and walk around to remedy the situation. Could I bring the walker out so he could sit on the seat and still have his feet on the ground. Yes, I could. I even brought him a snack and his magnesium water. After all, it was Father’s Day.

I heard him repeat the story twice to our daughters later. After hearing it the first time I asked him why he needed to be grounded if there were no electric fields, no EMFs in sight, but he didn’t answer – just shook his head. I guess I don’t really understand electricity (along with a lot of other things…).

Walker with seat attached

Not so long ago he would never have been caught using this. Now it is his best friend.

Taking It All In…

/ Shirleyjdietz / Leave a comment

6-11-2019
There have been several poignant moments today. In one of them, I could tell that my LO (loved one, as they say in the support group) was feeling very emotional. He was standing listening to a song “All Is Well with My Soul” and was clearly losing his composure – this, in front of our good friends visiting from Florida. I hugged him and helped him sway to the music. We danced, or something close to that, for the remainder of the song. He was able to quiet himself and come to the breakfast table with us.

Later, we were meeting with our pastor over a matter of great concern to us both. I had promised him he could talk and tell the pastor whatever he wanted to tell him. They talked for 90 minutes. One of the things that came out was his remembrance that I had said he was not the man I thought he was, when I married him. He wanted to admit that he had not been fully present in some of his family duties. His evidence that I felt that way was that I referred to him in my writing as “the husband”, not by his name, Dennis. This was the first time I had heard this and I was a little shocked to learn how he felt about it. It is easily remedied and I will call him Dennis from now on.

The last thing on today’s list of new realities was hearing Dennis’s announcement of finding new articles proving the connection between electrical sensitivity and Lewy Body Dementia. Once again, he is alarmed anew, to the extent of experiencing “angina” across his chest. Our proximity to power lines is an imminent danger to him, to me, and to my family. Nothing anyone has said about this matter has changed his narrative. I’m wondering if this is what the support group refers to as “looping”.

I also read something alarming today. There is a statistic that says 40% of caretakers die before their patient does, for various reasons (neglect of their own health, stress, etc…). Although I aim to be among the 60% that don’t, I have to admit that it is stressful to repeatedly hear about how we are all in grave danger, on the road to self destruction if we don’t heed the warnings of my husband, Dennis.

Voltage Problems

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6-4-2019

He’s just going to live outside from now on…

Two more days have passed since the husband had his first major meltdown about the electrical energy in our house. Things have not gotten better since. He has honed his theory about the natural voltage between the sky and the earth affecting him bodily. He feels it the minute he steps into the house. He has caught the idea of “earthing” and grounding himself to the earth, which he knows is going to help him feel so much better.
The day before last, he sat outside (where he felt safe), fell asleep and got a horrible sunburn on one side of his face. It blistered and was weepy, then crusty. He didn’t want to sleep in the house at night unless we turned off all the electricity. I did it for the sake of getting some peace. He kept saying that if he had a good night, that would prove it was the fault in the house causing the problem, as if there were no other reason that could cause his condition to change suddenly.
He is pretty much in denial about his LBD. He doesn’t quite realize that apart from a healing miracle, he is dying of dementia. It happens. He still tells people he is getting better and will once again do the things he has done, like playing his trumpet.
He went with Mom and I to Duluth today, for an appointment with Mom’s dermatologist. With his sunburned, damaged face he looked like he was the patient needing help. On the way home he was looking out the window at the sky and saw what he thought was a cloud formation, man made. It was quite diffuse and included jet trails, wide and fading, that fanned out like the spokes of a wagon wheel. Later at home he heard there was a bad storm near Duluth. Right away he attributed it to the government experimenting with weather control – the chem trails and clouds proved it. They were too unusual to be anything else. He spent the rest of the night looking up articles and people who would attest to what he thinks is true.
Some of the articles are on earthing – walking around with bare feet in contact with the ground. From there he went to wanting to order a special blanket that acts like a Farraday cage, which will protect him from voltage. Every time he stands up he says “okay, I’m about to get full voltage again…”
I don’t know what I’m going to do. He said he could not live like this (and I agree, totally). He talked about renting a different apartment but I can’t see that another building would be any different from the one we are in, built to code recently. I told him I wasn’t moving.
I’m not sure what he decided, but he has come up with something that has enabled him to go to sleep in the bedroom. I don’t think he has noticed that I turned the electricity back on. I noticed that he has not been fixated on his supplements lately, and he doesn’t eat as much as usual either – big changes for him.

The Journey Begins

/ Shirleyjdietz / 3 Comments

Thanks for joining me!

This journey began years ago, way before I realized what it was.

Why Me? Why Us?

I’ve heard it said that we are what we think.

I’ve heard it said that we are what we eat.

I’ve heard it said that it’s all up to genetics.

I think it’s a combination of all those things, some under our control and others not. I believe that God works with us in all of these things to create a life of a certain sort, unique to each person, and valuable to him.

Writing, My Therapy

I’m thinking about all of this because, over the last half year, I find that I’m living life with an awesome guy who now has a diagnosis of Lewy Body Dementia, LBD.  Finding this out about himself was life changing for him. It has been life changing for me. It’s our journey together, but I need a place to share my thoughts, experiences and observations without affecting him emotionally. This is it.

I blog elsewhere, at shirleyjdietz.com, but the husband, as I often refer to him, reads that. I put things there that I want him to know. He pays attention to things he reads, almost to the point of having a photographic memory.  I will probably write things here that might upset him, not in a disrespectful way but perhaps things that would be emotionally burdensome. He is a worrier.

To Encourage and Connect

In addition to working out my own thoughts, I want to encourage and connect with others who are having to get personal with the issue of dementia – Alzheimer’s, LBD or any others. It’s not an easy journey and it might help us to share our stories.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

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