Keeping a sense of humor sometimes has to be kept to yourself until you get where you can laugh without hurting someone else's feelings. I don't ever want to be guilty of laughing AT someone instead of WITH them.
Twice a week I have to get up at 4:30 am, rush around, and get to town to pick up a friend. Because of a medical condition he's not allowed to drive right now and he's a professor at a college 38 miles from Eureka. We get him there by 7:00 am, rush to McDonald's for a bite and some more coffee. Then we head back to the college, find a parking place, put the seats back and catch up on our sleep in the car until time to pick up the professor at 10:30 am.
I try to get Alan to get his clothes ready the night before so he can just put them on when he hits the floor. Doesn't work, but I try.
When we got ready to walk out the door, I noticed he wasn't even wearing a coat. "Alan, get a coat. Its cold outside. And get something to wrap up in so you can stay warm in the car." If you're wrapped up good, you can sleep comfortably even if it's pretty cold outside.
Usually he grabs a warm throw. Thank goodness I checked before we got out the door. He had returned to his bedroom and was now wrapped up in his bathrobe.
One of those moments when I wanted to double over laughing.
When you're dealing with an alzheimer's patient, you have to learn to speak alzheimers. I don't speak it well so it leaves room for confusion on his part.
Most of the time we can share a laugh, whether the laugh's on him or on me. Those are good times. And because of them we have fewer bad times.
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