Caregiving is lonely. You feel abandoned. Friends quit reaching out and avoid you. My family tries, but my family size is minuscule. There are only four of us. So I am in this role for 24-7 alone except when I get to attend mass on Sundays. My daughter watches her dad while I am at Mass for an hour. One bright light is a weekly Zoom session with my past boss who is also a friend. I am so grateful to her. I had to give up my volunteer work. I loved volunteering. It let me help others and gave me a social outlet too. People with dementia become very self-centered. They are scared and cling to whoever they feel is the most important person in their life. So he doesn’t care if I need medical, a haircut, etc. He likes to stick to his routine, and I better not change it. Regardless, I get my hair cut once every 8 weeks. He had a tantrum the last time he had to go with me. ~sigh~

I have my dogs at least; Starfire, a Karelian Bear Dog, and Kaya, my lab/border collie mix. They are a handful and so much joy. They also give me a lot of stress both financially and their health issues, but a lot of love as well. Starfire’s liver enzymes are a bit high and Kaya has kidney disease. There is no telling what he fed them while I was working. He was starting to show signs of dementia at least 11 years ago when I look back. Medical for pets has skyrocketed. I’m spending over $300 a month on medication for them. A bag of prescription dog food is over $100 a month! I’m now adding rice and veggies to their kibble to bulk it out and save money. A tiny tube of eye ointment is $30 and then the drops are around $80. Kaya has to have it or she will go blind. Starfire’s liver supplement is over $50 a month.

Dementia is expensive. My hubby can tear things apart but can’t reassemble. He tore the siding off the back of the house we currently live in. Where he stored it, I have no idea. I’ve searched and searched. I suspect he dropped it off at the dump. This occurred when I was working full-time. The siding has yet to be replaced. It’s expensive. He was a tip-top mechanic. I had a leaky steering hose in my van. He tore all sorts of stuff out of my van. My son got it reassembled and off to the auto shop it went. Hubby was insulted but he got over it. Now I take all of my rigs into the shop for repairs. I suspect he loosened one of my brakes. It fell off and hung down. What a racket it made when driving. The auto technician was horrified when he saw it. That Autoshop takes good care of me!

My hubby has to have the most expensive food and food in Alaska is already expensive (but I won’t deny him. This is all he has to look forward to now); bread, graham crackers, special tea, etc. He eats a block of graham crackers a day even though I ensure there are plenty of other snacks available for him. He insisted on $6 dark rye bread. Now he won’t eat it. He is positive it has seeds. He believes the seeds are getting under his false teeth. There are no seeds. And that’s another thing. I took him in to get his false teeth relined. Later that night, he dug out the $450 relining! Oh my gosh, I was in tears. Thankfully the dentist has a lot of compassion. She redid it for free. I removed all the tools I could find to prevent him from doing it again. He had done most of the damage in the bathroom where I couldn’t see!

He can’t be left alone. He is still independent but makes dangerous choices. He added hot embers from the woodstove into his plastic trashcan. The floor got scorched. The smell was bad!! I lectured him on the dangers not that it did much good. A couple of days later I caught him putting hot ashes and embers into a plastic garbage bag. Then a week later into another plastic garbage can. This time I had no clue where the toxic smell was coming from. I thought the wiring was melting in the walls, and I nearly called the fire station. Finally, I located the smell coming from his garbage can. So I replaced the woodstove with a pellet stove; $8k later! He is scared of it thankfully lol. But it doesn’t heat like my woodstove did. So we are cold but at least the house won’t burn down! Also, I can’t split wood any longer, and he sure can’t. I’ve had both shoulders rebuilt due to splitting wood for years.

My hubby is furious that he can no longer drive. He insists “they” took his license away. He gave it up voluntarily but doesn’t remember.

This is just a little bit of what is occurring. In my next blog, I’ll write about his delusions, paranoia, and anger.