A Day in the Life..

A little snip of what we do every day around our house with dad..

He tends to sleep in lately, with his little concoction of medicines, I'm surprised he wakes up at all.
So, whenever he stumbles out, he's usually holding himself up with the walls because of his low blood pressure (we think) and getting up quickly because he smells food. He gets either 3 cups of oatmeal or a big bowl of cereal along with his little bowl of medicine.

At the moment he takes a big dose of Seroquel twice a day, 375 mg of depakote twice a day, an antidepressant called pristiq every morning and 100 mg of Trazadone each evening. And the brown things are a chocolate chip, I'm sure they're as useful as all the drugs.. 



Some days he goes back to bed for a while, others he paces around a lot and tries to sneak into the kitchen for more food. His appetite is insatiable, even though he continues to lose weight.. completely unexplainable. 

There are few things he's still able to do, but some days are better than others. We'll get him outside to help with the horses some days, just cleaning up manure and moving hay since he's afraid of all the horses now.. even his own big sweetie. He collects the mail usually, occasionally takes out trash, and colors in his coloring book if he can pay attention long enough. A lot of his time is just spent watching me in the kitchen. It's where I'm most comfortable, so I could spend hours cleaning, prepping, and cooking a few meals in there. With his obsession with food, some days he'll sit and watch me all day.

There isn't much else that interests him. It's sad to watch..
Everything I listed that he may do still comes with multiple commands and constant supervision. Just to get the mail we have to tell him to get a jacket on, ask him to put his shoes on, and remind him once more before he goes outside to walk down to get the mail.

Showering isn't a daily thing, but when we do get him in the shower we have to tell him each step. Even getting in the water is a challenge! He has to be told  to get in, get his body and hair wet, we pour soap into his hand and tell him to wash his hair/beard/chest, then give him more soap to wash the rest of his body. Might I mention this is something that is all done with the shower curtain mostly open and he is naked, which doesn't sound like a big deal.. BUT this is the man who wouldn't even kiss his wife in public because he just didn't believe in any type of public displays.  
All of his clothes are picked out and laid out for him. He has to be told to dress in the new clothes and sometimes even reminded of how to put clothes on.
After his usually activities during the day, he'll usually get a big dinner and possibly sit and watch tv a few minutes with mom and I, if he can pay attention long enough.. Which doesn't happen very often anymore.
It's awful, but he's like a child, constantly being reminded of what he can and can't do, and only listening to a quarter of what we say. He gets praise when he does something well and high fives to pull his attention back to me when he's lost staring (at food usually).. I try to think of him as a three year old. Just as opposed to learning, loving and being open to new things, he just continues to regress.

 One good thing, is he plays like a 3 year old. We even got him some extra large legos that keep him entertained a few minutes. He has a big 16 piece puzzle for 5 and unders and a few coloring books to work in. Right now it's Marvel heroes, which I love : )