Monthly Archives: September 2019

It seems my application to transfer my poor confused love to another care home in the Valley is winding its way through the system. About 2 months ago I had asked to move us to The Views and added Glacier View just 2 weeks ago.

I have heard nothing official but it seems Glacier View is looking at his file.

What it means I don’t know. Can they decide they don’t want my sweet? or loud-mouth me? Do they have a bed or or they just preparing? I don’t know how the inner workings of this system go.

I know a decision is pending for us, to go or to stay. Leaving our dear many friends at the care home will be wrenching. For me, for sure and i think for them. But will it hurt him, or will he react to the change with glee as he did at the hospital?

I do not really want to leave where we have settled in, but it is not comfortable physically ( down to not enough furniture in the dementia ward again) or mentally.

I feel compelled to check who is on every shift, and who is off,  because the care is uneven for dementia, even if technically competent. I go every day to see if he is still ok. I am afraid to leave town. Even when he is sleeping, i need to check. This is so unhealthy.

Can Island Health fix this broken system? Oh, Maybe.  Can it fix it in time for my love and me to have a tiny bit more peace and grace in our last days together? Doubful. We probably don’t have that much time on earth unless something dramatic is done.

And so the decision looms, and uncomfortable change may have to be the choice.

And now I wait for the phone call. I think when it comes I will have 24 hours to choose and to act.

I have known for a decade and a half that this diagnosis was a fatal blow. Fatal to our lives together, fatal to our future, and literally fatal to my sweet and ornery love, although he always refused to believe it.

Sometimes i suspected it would kill me too.

In the strange way common to dementia victims, although he grieved and protested and denied and fought mightily against the slow stripping of his abilities, nonetheless he never believed it could kill him.

He sometimes tried to plan for leaving and going into a care home, and to be noble about it. He was diligent in looking for a new man for me, as if that was important for my survival, but never factored in his own demise.

And along with him, I have struggled and fought and protested and advocated for him and organised for better care every step of this long slow decline. We have been and are now intimate and loving to a level I never would have imagined. Stripped to our souls, we know who we are.

We are a team, but we are losing this battle together one day at a time. All we have to look for now is comfort.

Every good day, every smile, every dance step, every coherent word, is a victory. A moment of bliss, but only a respite on the very long road to defeat.

What I personally selfishly need is an end to this unending trauma, and I cannot bear that end. I cannot imagine how to survive that, although I know so many have done so. It must be possible, but how?

It is inevitable but that does not –  and has not – ever made it easier to accept.