DPP2021 Day 6 and 7 - Laughter heals and bonds

 

Well, I just had to let these beauties lead the story today,  These were a kind gift from someone who is a second mom to me.  She brings me the cherry chip cookies every year but the Mickey and Minnie Oreos were quite the day brightening surprise.  She is so creative and kind in her gift giving and I wish I was more like her when it came to both ideas and presentation.  But I am the great benefactor of getting to know her - and the biggest reasons for that have nothing to do with gifts.  Just the same, this gift brought me such joy and I wanted to share its cuteness and fun here.  

Days 6 and 7 were pretty run of the mill days that didn't leave a lot of space for showing up here to tell the stories.  But I am here to share them because there were a few good ones.  The first story came from my daily trip to help my mom and dad.  The routine is that I get Dad's infusion ready and then I will let him do the push every two minutes while I get some other things done for them.  Dad sets a timer on his phone so he knows when to push.  Mom asks frequently what sounds are and today was no exception.  I think on previous days, in hind sight, I had heard her inquiring about Dad's timer and Dad patiently explaining the timer.  In mom's defense, it does have a weird sound setting.   However, this evening, I sat down to go through Dad's labs with him and talk to him about some of the key lab values we have been watching.  As a side note, this set of labs was largely encouraging so we like that!  But this gave me a front row seat to Mom's every two minute alarm.  I snapped a picture here of her face as the alarm went off.   

Her concern is genuine but so is her annoyance.   This weird sound was disturbing her peace.  For a few rounds, we just explained what it is.  When someone you love has Alzheimer's, you find ways to keep prompting them without much of a thought to the repetitiveness of it.  Because that is the kind thing to do and because it helps to make it less bothersome for both you and your loved one that can't help that they can't remember.  For whatever reason, this began to strike Dad and me as funny.   I think it was the consistency of her exact same exclamation every single time - not only today, but every day.   Or maybe is was just the stress of all we have been through in the last two months just bubbling its way out via laughter.   As we started to get the giggles, we had to clue her in that the timer gets her attention every two minutes.  We don't normally point out when she is forgetting if we don't have to because we don't like her to be more stressed than necessary as she walks through this disease.    At first she was a little wounded and gave us a frown - with just a hint of playfulness to it.  I can't blame her for not loving the source of our laughter - we certainly didn't pick it or intend for it to strike us so funny.    Dad and I felt dutifully guilty but after two minutes, the giggles returned despite our best efforts.  Please don't judge us too harshly, we all know what it is like to get the giggles and not be able to suppress them.   And as we tried to suppress them for her benefit, she exclaimed, "I did it again!" and laughed a little bit herself.   But then she returned to indignant and said, "Fine! I am not going to say anything anymore." - but two minutes later, she did.   Dad and I did better this time at suppressing our humor as to not hurt her feelings but she is a smart woman - and she reads nonverbals well.   She started grinning and we started laughing and then she started laughing.   It seems so dark to find so much humor in this interaction - but even as I sit here typing it, I can help but smile as I write it.   Because at the end of the day, the tragedy of the Alzheimer's is going to be there - no matter what.  And the humor in this situation was a moment of release for all three of us - to find joy in the awful and to find some common ground together in the hilarity of the two minute phone and mom alarm.   We would never want to make mom feel badly but it turned out, even she began to see the humor.  If she can begin to laugh and find joy in the darkness - well that is a win.  And at the end of the infusion, she started remembering what that sound was, cracking jokes about it and joining the fun.  I am eager to see if that humor and levity helped to lay some memory that holds through the next few days.  Because one thing I know is that laughter really is good medicine and even if it doesn't, look how happy she was by the end.   That is worth it regardless of the way we got there.    As Dad says, sometimes you gotta laugh or else you would cry yourself to death.   

My next series is of my great avoider of responsibility.  I hope this is a phase and that with a little maturity, he will begin to focus in and take care of business.   But right now, he likes to lean on his intelligence and cleverness and dodge and weave things like studying for spelling tests.   When the beast finally gets cornered - he will study - but not while holding still.   Here he is spinning himself around on the floor as he yelled out letters to his dad.  I found great humor in this too.   Maybe he is a kinetic learner or maybe he is just a goofball.   Whatever the case may be - the spelling got studied and he had a grand time doing it.  

He had just finished his floor spinning/spelling practice when his big sis walked in from the gym.  These two usually fight like cats and dogs but I have noticed a little softening in both of them as they find some common ground.   They are both a lot alike so it isn't surprising they butt heads now and again.   Right now, the say "You're Done." with a little hand to the face motion and a whole lotta sass that makes them both giggle as they try and out do one another.  It is never dull around here.  

My day seven picture would have been:

Who would stack up frozen pizzas and place them outside their car door in a parking lot?   *raising hand sheepishly*  So I went to do my Dad's infusion on day 7 (previously mentioned story was on day 6) and he was clearly more fatigued than he had been.  This is expected for the part of the chemo cycle but it shifted my plan for the evening.   We did his infusion and changed his bandage (Mom did not ask about the timer today - so maybe the laughter was good medicine?).  Then I popped their chicken enchiladas in the oven because I knew it wouldn't occur to him until it was too late to cook them.  As I was placing half the leftovers in the fridge for lunch and the remaining in the freezer for a time when a quick meal is needed - I pulled out some frozen pizzas my sweet friend, LeAnna provided for my children should they not like her food.  I don't know if you have ever had LeAnna's food or her mom's for that matter - but of course my kids loved her food.   So I decided to take these home for an evening, like this evening, that Rich finds himself in charge of dinner with limited time.  I had set them out thinking I had plenty of time.  But there was more to be done to help mom and dad.  Mom needed her hair curled, we needed to order some bandage supplies, dishes and laundry needed some attention - so the pizza's sat out longer than anticipated.   As I left, I realized the timing was such that I could just swing and get lil B from basketball....so I did.   But the pizzas were starting to thaw - so I placed them outside my vehicle for the 30 minutes while I waiting for Lil B's practice to be done.  You would not believe - or maybe you would, how comical passersby found this pizza phenomenon.  All I can tell you is that at 25 degrees outside, it solved my problem and the pizza's survived!