Round and round we go

Starting week three down here in the scorching desert, which thankfully is somewhat less scorching right now ("only" 97°F outside). Marty is off trying to get info on the camper trailer he and Dad own and want to be rid of, I've investigated easy ways to take care of that; between the two of us we may well be able to get rid of both that and the giant truck they have that's been sitting unused in their driveway for who knows how long.

Meanwhile, the home-care nurse was just here giving Dad a once-over; he's dizzier today than he has been for a while, but otherwise he checked out well. Yesterday a physical therapist paid a visit (a distractingly attractive one, if I'm being candid); she was great, put Dad through the motions with some minor exercise and gave Marty some attention as well. The day prior, we took Dad in to see his neurologist, who seemed to be far more concerned with Dad's mobility than his cognition. That surprised me, but then she has a context to work from that I don't. Dad was pretty cogent for that visit, only failing the "name the months in reverse order" exercise and showing reasonably good immediate recall.

I don't really know what to make of it all; having observed all this for a couple of weeks now, I've seen the swings, the marked difference between well-rested Dad and tired-minded Dad. I've got a better sense of things than what I had from just primarily reports from Marty and my sister (which always differ, sometimes wildly). I've gone from believing Dad was looking at just a few more months maybe to thinking this is going to stabilize and persist in this fashion for a while longer.

Is that good or bad? My mom's third husband, the one she was married to the longest and at the end, he also had Alzheimer's but it had not progressed terribly far before he died. At that time, I thought it was a good thing that he didn't have to go through the later stages. On the other hand, due to some pretty fucked up international/intercultural family dynamics, he'd been stuck living in a place and situation he didn't want to be in and had no control over anything, while Dad is living at home (even if he sometimes thinks otherwise) with Marty and—other than dealing with some vertigo (which we''re still trying to treat, and may have some therapy for shortly)—is coasting along relatively comfortably, even when he's confused.

On balance, I'll go with "good thing." Though he did just ask me what I did with the dog. He had a dog when I was a kid that he loved, but it's been decades. Marty had a dog while they were traveling in their fifth-wheel nomad days, but that too was some time back. I don't know which of those, if either, he was thinking of.

I don't think I could handle this if it was just me and Dad here. Even while Marty is gone for a few hours (like now) it gets frustrating/difficult in a way that it doesn't if Marty is here too. Part of that is a comfort level for Dad, I'm sure, but it's also that we can trade off helping him get up and around and use each other to deflect a difficult topic of discussion that's outside reality.

But part of why I'm here is to allow for Marty to get out now and then, so I persevere. Next thing on my agenda is to reposition and alter the bed rail thing as much as can be done. Dad detests it, which isn't all that surprising, but he also doesn't get what it's for and is only focused on it as an impediment. I'm hoping that some placement tweaks will help make it actually useful and not a waste of space.

My wrist is improving bit by bit, so that's good. And I bought a mosquito trap gadget to lessen my daily blood loss to the hated bugs' massive appetites—there seems to always be some part of me that itches; feet, hands, back, arms, fingers, even my face is getting bitten at night. Looks like I'm going to be here a while longer, so might as well make it as nuisance-free as possible.

I miss my cats. I hear from my neighbor that they are fine, but I still worry about them. Fortunately, cats tend to live in the moment and won't be keeping track of just how long I've been away from them, but I still expect to be reminded when I get home that I didn't get their permission to leave.

For distraction, I've been enjoying the new season of Ted Lasso and catching up on Lanterns, which is surprisingly good; Green Lantern is such a goofy superhero concept that I didn't have great hopes for a TV adaptation, but they're doing a good job making it gritty and not outlandish.

I'd written a much longer post about how things are going here last night, but before I posted it my laptop decided to glitch and everything froze up; in the end it crashed and I had to reboot, losing everything I'd written over a couple of hours. When oh when will I learn to save as I go? Sometimes I feel like Bart Simpson sticking his finger in the AC socket over and over. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. I'm not going to bother trying to reconstruct last night's writing, if I recall correctly it was mostly angst. But I will(?) learn the lesson to save every now and then.