Hi All-

First things first... mom finally got rid of Nancy #2! I know Angie talked a bit about our frustrations with her last week. She just was not at all assertive and as nice as she was it just was in no way the right fit! Dad now has a young guy care giver. Sounds like he is around 27 or so, so much more his speed! Dad is really enjoying him so far and it sounds like he is much more open to going on walks and getting dad out of the apartment! They also have a younger girl coming on Saturdays for a few hours and she is unreal with the laundry and cleaning stuff. Dad was extremely impressed with how quickly she was able to get a few loads done and change the sheets on both beds! HA!

So Saturday night I let my mom have the night off so she could go to a birthday party for one of her old coworkers. I wasn't able to go down on Friday so I was glad to have a little time with dad. I went down around 6:30 and he was glued to the TV watching the basketball game. I had brought him some dinner so we moved to the table and I helped him eat and he literally just stared at the TV. After dinner he wanted to go to the store and get ice cream. At this point it is about 8:15 and I was fine walking up to the store but wanted to get there and back before dark. Dad was dilly dallying around. Thinking he was capable of doing all these things he used to be able to do... quickly close the windows, turn off the tv, shut off all the lights, go to the bathroom. All really simple things but takes him SO MUCH longer! When I finally got him in his chair and out the door we quickly made our way to Safeway. Its only a few blocks away so not a big deal. When we got there he quickly grabbed his vanilla ice cream and then wanted bars of some sort... after fighting with me about the fact that they were currently out of root beer flavored popsicles and staring at the chocolate bars he finally settled on the Magnum dark chocolate. Anyway... we went to check out and the line was SO long and the sun was going down rapidly... I finally paid and dad was trying to say something to me as we were walking out. I finally realized that he wanted to go "look at the alcohol" now that you can buy it anywhere he wanted to check it out. I said dad I'm not waiting in that line again and he assured me that he just wanted to look... mean daughter that I am told him its just like the liquor store... its getting dark we're going home! So I pushed him quickly back home and then sure enough as we were in the middle of the street he decides he wants to push me. I had to push him down so I could get us out of the street and up the hill and then I let him push me for a block and around their garage. As I was getting the key to go back in their building I dropped a dime out of my pocket and sure enough dad leaned down to get it and then was completely frozen. He was still holding onto the wheelchair and I was halfway in it. There wasn't a lot I could do aside from make him sit himself down and then we started over! He just doesn't understand that he can't do things like that and that in the grand scheme of things that dime isn't really that important!

So needless to say when we finally got into their apartment I was wiped out and irritated! We have been told that this is part of the disease they think they are still perfectly capable of daily things. Its hard to say "give it up dad" or discourage him since it is good that he still wants to push himself, but at this point he is really putting himself in danger. Even when we got into the apartment, his first focus was not to sit down it was to turn on the tv and he was barely standing but wouldn't focus on anything but getting the TV on.  For the most part he seems like he is ok but his stares are getting a lot longer and he can be mute for very long periods of time. On Thursday night their friends the Clows were in town and Angie had them all over. Angie said dad didn't say one word the entire night. I think he has some important doctor appointments coming up so hopefully we'll have a little more info! I'll let Angie talk more about their visit with the Clows. All I got out of dad was that it was really great and he was proud of himself because he pushed Mrs. Clow for about 3 blocks in the wheelchair :)