Conference agenda

The past couple of days have been frustrating but also starting to border on routine. 

Some of the frustrations are of the more typical sort—for example, the bed rail we bought arrived and upon assembling it I discovered that (a) it shipped without the "night light" attachment, and, more importantly (b) it does not have a fold-down function as implied in the description. That's partly my own fault, I neglected to delve deeply into the specs, instead merely relied on the video that showed a person folding it down. For our purposes, that's an essential feature. The thing wasn't cheap, nor was it easy to install, so I don't want to go through the mess of returning it and trying again with another model, so I've decided to improvise something that will make it work like we want it to. My idea is a little janky, but worth trying, I think. Just have to wait for a span where Dad's not in bed and Marty can sit with him while I muck about with it.

The other frustrations are Dad's-brain-related.

We've seemingly moved on from him thinking we're in hospital-provided housing on a giant medical campus to him thinking we're at some sort of convention center or hotel at which there are important things happening with a professional group of people. He wants to see the program listings, he can't figure out where certain people are or where they went when they "were here a short time ago." He's tried sending either me or Marty "downstairs" to the sign-in desk to determine who is driving us to and fro and when, and he's convinced a guy that worked for him in 1979 has been calling with important details on some seminar or other. He's had me walk him around the house to all the windows so he could try to figure out where people have gone off to. When I left to run an errand for my janky improvisation plans on the railing, he insisted I be back in time for the event and that I be aware that there will be a lot of people here for it.

This was an all-day thing yesterday; today it was absent for the first part of the day and returned in the later afternoon. We had been watching the Mariners game (hey, they won! Astounding.) and not long after it ended the questions about the conference were back. On the other hand, there were no vertigo incidents today and he was walking without the aid of a cane or walker (not my preference, but there's no convincing him sometimes) without stumbling at all.

One of several medical appointments is coming up on Friday; I'm curious as to how easy it will be to get him in and out of the car. We did buy a "transport chair" for him (kind of a lightweight wheelchair) that has yet to be put to use, so hopefully that will help.

This is tough. But as I say, it's starting to also be more routine as I get further experienced with this circumstance; at one point yesterday I felt like we needed to get some sort of professional help in here within the week, then later realized that, no, this is not appreciably different than what Marty's been contending with for a few weeks now, I am just panicking. Yes, having that help would be a boon for sure, but it's all still quite manageable—if I can figure out how to respond and engage with the beliefs of being at a convention center and the staff from the U of A Med Center media department are milling about downstairs without him.

Right now, though, I'm going to watch the new episode of Strange New Worlds. May it not suck as badly as last week's.