Some days are harder than others

Today was a little bit harder than most days. It wasn't anything groundbreaking, but overall Grammy just seemed more anxious and tense throughout the day.

This morning started out pretty good. Grammy even remembered how to turn on the stove to make hot water for tea for herself. She also pulled out her curling iron, curled her hair and remembered to unplug it. She was doing more tasks on her own than I've seen since I've been here.

It was short lived. The rest of the day was full of enough weird behavior to make the earlier moments of lucidity seem more like a fluke than a sign of any improvement. She had ice cream twice today, both between lunch and dinner. I think that having ice cream twice is definitely a sign of memory loss, but I don't think it's a particularly bad one :). The first time I found her in the kitchen (a phrase that I seem to use a lot!) she was pulling the ice cream out of the freezer. She was about to scoop it out onto a little plate because she "only wanted a little bit". I told her she should switch out the plate for a bowl and gave her the bowl. She agreed that it was probably a better vessel to put it in because it was designed better to hold the ice cream (her logic). The second time she was eating ice cream, Sol and I had gone for a run between 4:20-4:50pm. When we got back, she had a little plate with some ice cream on it. The plate ended up working fine because she ate it fast enough, but, ya know... About an hour later I was cooking some vegetables and Sol was picking up our pizza for dinner. Sue had come over after work and was in the kitchen when I opened the fridge to take out some salad dressing. I had opened and closed the fridge probably 5 times already, but Sue is the one that noticed that there was the tub of ice cream in the refrigerator. I moved it to the freezer, and luckily it wasn't too melted by then.

Grammy also took out a piece of bread as we were making salad, waiting for the pizza. She said that she'd save it for after dinner to eat it with some nutella (because--you guessed it--she hadn't had it in such a long time!) Then when we were eating dinner she took it with her and put it on top of her pizza, making it like a sandwich with the pizza crust and ate her pizza that way. She said that everything was good, but she's also pretty polite.

That's the thing. At least my grandmother's nature is of a polite, shy and nice person. I'm lucky that she's not a nasty, cantankerous croon. Really. I'm also extremely lucky that Sol is here, because even though I'm not paying him nearly enough attention, just knowing he's there is a huge relief. And I am equally hugely lucky that Sue is next door. It wouldn't be nearly enjoyable, and most of the time it actually is bordering on enjoyable, if Sue's house weren't next door to escape to every once in a while. Or to go ask questions about how things function in an adult/senior citizen world (i.e. bills, tax stuff, prescriptions, etc.).

Anyway, we took a nice walk around the block today but Grammy still "got that feeling" of anxiety in the late afternoon (between ice creams) and went to Sue's house to take a pill. It seems like she is embarrassed to take the anti-anxiety pill in front of us when she feels like she needs it. So she says that she's going to Sue's and will do it at her house. This is fine, but it's during those times that she isn't in a great mood overall. The pills help a lot, but they make her sleepy. She also got a call from Walgreens while we were running that one of her prescriptions was filled. She normally doesn't answer the phone, and Sue calls in and picks up all of her refills. So it was strange when we got home and she was sitting there with three pieces of paper with different notes scrawled over them. Two were old scrap papers lying around, and on one of them she had written down a note about the call. It read, "Whalgreens farmcy." She was looking at it and looking at me and would say, "I don't know how to spell anymore." Her mood was tense about the prescription until Sue took her about half an hour later. I think she was worried that we would forget to do it based on the fact that historically she would be responsible for it herself, and she now forgets all the time.

I was worried about coming here because I'm normally really sensitive to other people's moods. I feel like I can read people pretty well, and when I sense tension I try my best to ease it because it makes me anxious. Luckily, I'm able to detach myself enough with my grandmother at the moment that I have been handling her bad moods pretty well. The thing is---they are temporary and inevitable. In general she seems to do better when she can focus on cleaning something or looking through old photos or reminiscing about old stories.

I found my grandfather's 200+ page book about our family's genealogy. He spent over three decades researching and compiling the Hernandez-Couture family history into a readable and interesting anthology. There are (luckily) electronic copies of it, and I hope everyone in the family has one (if not let me know and I'll send it to you). I would love to read it, so I think that starting tomorrow or so I'll read it out loud with Grammy. I figure I'll try to rummage a bit through the basement and the attic for old photos or other interesting documents that are lying around. People have done this a lot in the past already, so I'll just see what is left over. The only problem is that walking into the basement is like walking into a torture chamber for me. I get such horrible allergies that I can only spend 5 minutes there at a time. But the treasures are worth it. I didn't know my grandfather very well at all, since he died when I was 6. I did spend a vacation with him, my grandmother and my cousin in Italy the year before he died and I have a couple memories from that. It's really been a treat to read his writing and to get to know him a little better through it. Clearly a very good writer, with a dry and dark wit. I like it. Best line (although I can't seem to find it now) was about me as a baby and basically said "She's awfully cute, even if she does look more like her dad."