dogslife
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- Type of diabetes
- Type 2
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Thanks for sharing your stories, Krystyna. I can certainly relate to them. It's good that you have memories to make you smile. My FIL did not have dementia but could be mischeivous and a bit impulsive. In his 90's he was still mobile but was beginning to struggle with his sight. Once we had taken him on holiday with us. When it was time to leave we couldn't find him anywhere. Becoming really concerned we set of to search for him and looked everywhere we could think of. An hour later he casually walked up to us and told us he'd been on a lovely boat trip around the bay! When we were working he often liked to surprise us -like the time he painted our garden wall a shocking shade of bright red which took years to fade, bless him. With mum it has been a steep learning curve and for a long time I made the mistake of trying to involve her in choices/ decisions and of explaining what was going to happen but have now realised that she cannot cope with that and I have to make decisions in her best interest. Best wishes.So sorry you are going through this. It is so difficult when our loved ones have altzheimers. You are doing brilliantly.
My big regret - looking back at the time we looked after my father in law - was that I felt I must tell him if I did certain things before I did them. So I would ask him if I could wash his clothes - he would say no and say they didn't washing. He would then get upset. Why oh why didn't I just go in his room.and take the clothes - he would never have known as his dementia was quite advanced then.
He was quite feisty and I can be a bit bossy. This led to one memory that always makes me smile. Before his dementia got too bad we arranged for him to visit my brother in law in Canada.
He wanted to wear his ancient gardening jumper which was full of holes and filthy because he wouldn't let me wash it. I bought him some new M&S jumpers that I insisted he wore on his trip.
So the morning of his flight from Norwich he came down for breakfast in a new jumper. He went upstairs to get his coat and it didn't occur to me that he would change into the old jumper and button up his coat so I wouldn't see the swap.
The first I knew about it was a furious call from my BIL - how could I have sent him like that! I love it that my father in law got great enjoyment from outwitting me.
I had arranged that KLM would look after him and they were brilliant. Before the flight I coached him over and over again on what he had to do - which was stay on the plane at Schipol as someone was going to take until onto the next plane to Toronto.
On the morning of the flight he thought he would have a bit more fun.. So when I asked him what he would do when he got to Schipol he said he was going to get off the plane and look for a KLM plane. He probably laughed all the way to Canada at the look of horror on my face.