Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving with husband's family mainly to give me more time to gather strength after the surgery and also for the sake of our daughter and son-in-law who had celebrated Thursday with his family.
We chose to have the dinner at MIL's house, wanting to see how much FIL actually remembered about the house he built and lived in since 1962 thus seeing how far his dementia had progressed. None of us have visited him for over a month now since MIL developed shingles and then broke her humerus. Interesting enough, having the caretakers tell him that MIL had been there the day before satisfied him.
So BIL went to MIL's house last weekend and cleaned and moved furniture around. Hubs went Friday to steam clean the carpets and finish helping MIL set everything up. Between BIL and me (with the help of hubs and kids) we did all the cooking and brought everything in, making enough for leftovers for MIL (we made her individual meals using the food saver so all she had to do to reheat a meal was to poke a hole in the package then zap it in the microwave. We wrapped each package to include a meat, potato, and a vegetable.)
As I reflect on yesterday's events, I can't help but remember prior Thanksgiving dinners. As a young child, you just attend and play. As we age, we are given more responsibility that might include washing the dishes, etc. Then we begin bringing dishes and in the blink of an eye, you are the one responsible for making sure the entire dinner goes off - the ring leader so to speak.
Yesterday reminded me of a 3 ring circus. I sat at the dining room table right off the kitchen and kept an eye on the living room with MIL, making sure she was comfortable, etc, and directed the different areas. I thought BIL cooked. He does but with his wife's precisely written instructions and detail including everything put into baggies and labeled A, B, C, D, etc. On each label is also what to do with the ingredients within that baggie. She had everything so spelled out for him, it was idiot proofed. That's how he cooks. Not so good in directing this person in how I cook - by how it looks. But he was all I had so I directed and he followed his directions and then mine to time everything to come out together.
Hubs and son went and picked up FIL, telling him they were taking him to dinner. When they pulled up to the house, he asked whose house it was. Hubs distracted him by saying it was where they were having dinner, hoping something might trigger his memory once inside. Didn't happen. FIL did recognize MIL but it wasn't a really good day for FIL. His memory retention was shorter than normal and he was stuck in the 1940's. MIL was trying to hold it together and not cry that her husband of over 60 years didn't even recognize his own home. She also would try not to flinch when he would try to hug her and hit her broken arm because that meant repeating the entire story about what was wrong. So a diversion was needed in that room to keep MIL from breaking down and FIL from wigging us all out with his unrelenting repeat of the same questions. But the day went well and we delivered FIL back to his group home without incident.
So for one day in the life of a family trying to go on and maintain family tradition post surgery, post fractured humerus, and with a dementia patient, I think it went well.
It's funny how the dementia mind works. I think I said his memory yesterday was only of his wife and not the house or any one of us. After dinner, FIL got up to go to the bathroom. The home has 2 bathrooms - one close to the table and the other at the back of the house behind the garage - one he added on with a shower and it is the one hubs' family always considered to be the 'pooping' bathroom because it had a fan in it. So hubs starts to take FIL to the bathroom nearest to the table and FIL stops him and whispers to hubs: "I have to go to the pooping bathroom."
I think we all lost it then. Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, it was only his wife and the pooping bathroom he remembered the entire day.
Another Thanksgiving reflection and memory added. Wonder when I get that age, what I will remember...............
