New Shoes?

I received an email from Norman today with this little note:

One cute story for the Poway stay: I woke him up one day and we started the day well. When he was definitely "up" I went back to getting myself fully ready. When I returned to the living room I saw him sitting serenely, looking like he'd finished before I did. On closer inspection, though, rather than wearing his own shoes he was wearing the size 14 near-new boots I had put in the entryway for Brandon, who wears the same size I do. Dad, however, wears a 10 or 10.5! They looked like clown boots on him. Best of all, when I pointed out the problem, Dad said with a twinkle in his eye, "But I like these! I'll just try them out today. Might make my feet grow some."

One thing this disease has not taken away from dad is his sense of humor!

Home Again, Home Again

On May 10th Eli and I celebrated our 20 year anniversary. Eli surprised me with a 14 day cruise to Hawaii! He went ahead and booked the trip while I was away at a conference for work and was going to keep it a secret, but he was having so much fun looking at all the things to do on the islands that he ended up telling me.

Norman and Toni agreed to have dad stay with them for the two weeks we were away. The cruise was to begin on April 27th, but since April 26th was dad's birthday Norm asked if they could have him for his birthday too.

On the way to San Diego to drop dad off we spent the night in Las Vegas. During the ride dad sat up front with me, while Eli slept in the back seat. As we were driving along, every once in a while dad would ask me where we were taking "this load". I think he was having truck driving memories. I just replied San Diego...which would then lead to "I thought we were in San Diego"...

Then while we were in the hotel room, dad kept forgetting we were in a hotel. Thankfully it was late enough that we just went right to bed. But then I got to worrying..."What if this trip isn't good for dad?" and "What if it just confuses him more?" I actually began to feel a little guilty, but then realized that even when dad is home he gets confused...it's sadly part of daily life for him now.

We have now been back home a week and I am happy to report dad has adjusted quite well. I don't even think he remembers being in San Diego. The weather here has been fairly nice the past few days and he has even been able to go out and pull weeds in the yard.