Well…..here we go. A year of making myself a priority. I am nervous–scared I won’t be able to do it.
Taking care of others? No problem. I have been a caregiver for a good chunk of my life–either as a mom or as a wife or as a full-blown caregiver.
But taking care of me? I don’t know exactly how to do that. Though I don’t often make resolutions, I am this year: treat myself as if I matter. Because I do. And maybe if I tell myself that enough, I will believe it.
Happy 2017!
Filed under Uncategorized
Wow. More than three years since I posted here. And so much has changed.
My husband is now in a nursing home and has been for nearly two years and is suffering with the last stages of Alzheimer’s and it is so painful as his wife to watch him suffer so.
I tried so hard to create a healthy diet for him while he was still at home, though I know that I could have done better. It was just so overwhelming. And now that I am on my own, I am not taking care of me well at all.
And that’s why I’m here and doing the lame ‘New Year’s resolution’ crap and I figured if I documented it here, I might have a chance in hell of actually sticking to it.
Caring for my husband has really taken its toll on me. I feel the stress of everything required of me intensely. It makes my chest tight, my breathing fast, heart rate fast. I have gained a lot of weight–both from the antidepressant and antianxiety meds I have to take now as well as from eating the wrong foods. I am exhausted all of the time. My blood pressure is creeping up. While the antidepressant works, it doesn’t take it all away and I have so much trouble functioning.
I go up and visit him nearly every day and I leave the nursing home in tears almost every day.
I don’t like living like this.
And so I am here and hoping that blogging for the next year will be what keeps me sane….and healthy.
Here’s to 2017.
Filed under Uncategorized
Things came up with the budget and I’m trying to survive till the next payday–so the diet hasn’t been the healthiest. I am trying to come up with a plan to make the best of what budget I do have and not worry about what I don’t. It’s much easier said than done 😉 but I am working on it. Thankfully, the budget seems to be recovering from some unexpected expenses and I am now employed (in my degree field, even!) part-time, so that should take some of the pressure off. I am reading lots right now to hopefully create the best diet I can afford for Quinten–as well as the rest of us.
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I’m back! I’ve graduated and am now looking for employment. I’m also trying to get beyond just surviving with our diet and am motivated to find a way to feed my large family a healthy diet on a fixed income. My next shopping trip will be on the 19th so between now and then, I will be trying to plan a healthy menu that I can afford.
Filed under Uncategorized
So….it’s been a while since I’ve posted. The last couple of months have been stressful and I am barely holding it together. So instead of a post talking about how I am incorporating healthy food in an effort to help Q, I am going to talk about me.
Last summer, I had terrible allergies and my panic attacks while driving came back with a vengeance. Given the fact that I am the primary driver now (Q has been unable to drive for 3 years now) and given the fact that we live at least 20 miles away from civilization, panic attacks while driving are a big hairy deal. It’s not like I can stop driving anywhere–even though I have reduced my driving quite a bit as a result.
Last Wednesday I was driving to town to get Q from adult care when the panic attacks hit. I had to pull over twice to calm myself down. I had absolutely no way to NOT go get him. And it made me cry. I wish I didn’t have to deal with these like I do. The one time I tried to take something for it (antianxiety), I nearly drove myself and my kids off the road after just one pill. When I called to ask wtf, I was nonchalantly told that suicidal thoughts are a common side effect. So I have been dealing with this–unmedicated–for more than a decade.
But now that I am CAREGIVER, I do not have the luxury (haha. like this is luxury in any way) to just deal with it. So, I’ve been searching for ways to deal with this naturally.
I have often felt that all of my allergy symptoms, the eczema, and the panic attacks are all related. I just didn’t know how.
Imagine my surprise when I found something that described so many of my symptoms–and provided a solution!
My symptoms right now include:
So what is this cure I may have found? A low histamine diet. All of my symptoms are covered in this. Stress also makes histamine. Great. Like I can control the amount of stress in my life.
So….tomorrow I start this diet. I know it sounds a little crazy but I am desperate.
Here are some websites I found:
So…we’ll see how this diet goes and if it helps any. I am thankful coffee is on the approved list.
Filed under Uncategorized
I have been MIA. Between the craziness of the Christmas season and being sick for most of the month of December, I just didn’t post here. Hopefully now that we are back to school and attempting a normal schedule, I’ll be able to post more frequently. No promises though. 🙂 I just started my final two classes–one of which is a massive capstone project–and I may not have as much time as I’d like.
To Do list for January:
Filed under Alzheimer's, Holidays, Misc
I am a bit behind in posting these. By about day 5, I was streamlining the process for Quinten. He is having so much trouble with these but there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that he wants to do this for the kids. He is often frustrated (and doing a unique card for each kid was simply too much for him) but he is able to do at least 2 per day. We are up to day 18 (pics will be posted soon) so by Tuesday, we should have the rest of them completed and we can focus on letting him hand them out each night.
Day 5. Chapstick and a small chocolate. Note from Dad: “I am thankful that you…”
The lighting in my room sucks much of the time so the pictures sometimes turn out crappy. Day 6. Note from Dad: “You are smart.”
Day 7. Hot chocolate packets and the note from Dad which says, “I am so thankful that I am your dad. Love, Dad”
Day 8. Organic honey hard candies and the note from Dad. “You are handsome/beautiful.”
By now, you may be questioning/judging the amount of sugar in these packets–especially from someone who purports to be changing our diets to combat early onset Alzheimer’s. Again, it’s about balance. I have successfully, except for these presents, gotten rid of most of the sugar in our diet (the little bit that we do get mostly comes from the sugar in semi-sweet chocolate chips). And this whole idea is a way to give my kids something special this Christmas season. No matter how you spin it, their daddy has a terminal disease and is getting worse every day. They are dealing with so much right now and handing them baggies of carrot sticks just doesn’t send the message I want to send right now.
Balance.
We can go back to our sugar-free lives in 2 weeks.
Filed under Alzheimer's, Diet, Holidays
I love the Christmas season!! The tree is up, decorations are placed, and Christmas music is playing.
Today’s post is going to be a little different from what I normally post. I love blogging about our switch to a healthy diet and posting recipes that we are using to help Quinten combat Alzheimer’s. But first and foremost, I am a mom and caregiver. And as such, I spend a lot of time making our “good” time count. I work hard to make sure we are creating memories for the kids.
So, the other night an idea came to me that excited me so much I couldn’t sleep! Of course, it’s not working out quite as wonderfully as I’d imagined…but still….
The idea I came up with is something I’ve been calling The Alzheimer’s Advent Calendar. When the kids were little, we would purchase chocolate advent calendars from the Commissary. Of course, being the absolutely unorganized mom I am, the kids would often find them and devour all of the chocolate well before Christmas actually got here. My goal is always to have an Advent calendar. Maybe this year, it’ll actually work out. ;)My thought for this calendar is to have Quinten write out a card for each of the kids each night (5 times 24 is A LOT of cards!).
The first thing we did is head to Michael’s for crafting supplies. I found cheap little journals for $1.50 each after discovering my planned photo books were well over $10.
On each book, I found vinyl lettering for their names. I wish I’d gotten letters that were more pronounced since it’s hard to see the kids’ names.
And since each journal page was so flimsy, I am pasting a sheet of card stock into the books before attaching the notes from Quinten.
As you can see, Quinten is having trouble with sentences.
With each book, I also added this:
Since we were on a roll, I decided to do a few more days’ worth.
Day two:
These were boozy chocolates which are a tradition in our house. 🙂 They do resemble moose droppings in this picture though. 😉
Day 3
Slim Jims. Yeah. Not healthy. But I am trying to live my life in balance (and not stress about every little thing) and this was something the kids traditionally liked. Funny thing though, they weren’t impressed by them AT ALL last night (one kid has figured out that nitrates are bad news for him and one of the girls was actually gagging after eating one) and requested the Paleo jerky that I’ve gotten before. I love that they are realizing these things on their own.
Day 4:
This one is all wrapped up but inside is a Keurig cup. My kids love the Keurig coffees but we rarely have enough grocery money left over to justify a purchase since I can get a 5 pound bag of organic, free trade coffee from the health food store for a little more than the price of a box of the cups from Amazon. My sons who work early in the morning do buy their own so that they can have coffee before they leave for work. I am not sorry for raising coffee snobs. 😉
We’ve made up a couple more since then but I haven’t had a chance to retrieve them from my phone. I will post them as I am able to. Quinten is having a very, very hard time with these cards and I’m worried about the rest of the month. One of my kids has totally called me on the cards, saying that these are things that *I* would say instead of what Dad would and that he’s never gotten affirmation from Dad like that. 😦 So today, I am googling ‘words of affirmation for kids’ and printing out lists. I will then help Quinten choose the words he wants to say.
I am so, so sad that he is having such a hard time with this. I’ve been told that depending on where the damage from Alzheimer’s occurs, you will get different symptoms of the disease. For Quinten, it definitely is language and abstract thinking. It’s been such a long time since we’ve had a real conversation (probably pre-2008). This makes projects like this insanely difficult and makes important talks (like living will, etc.) difficult, if not impossible.
But for now, I will gladly help Quinten complete this for the kids. He may not have ever said these things to the kids (as evidenced by one child’s comments), but I know at one point he definitely did feel these things. And maybe my kids won’t appreciate the finished Advent book now but I do hope they will someday. And I hope that they can see past the hurt and realize that this horrible disease took Dad from them–it wasn’t Dad *choosing* to be this way towards them. And most of all, I do hope they know they are loved.
Filed under Alzheimer's, Holidays
So….the other day, I’m all like “WHOO!! I’ve lost 6.6 pounds by changing my diet in this first month of eating whole foods!!”
I have so much trouble losing weight that those 6.6 pounds are definitely an accomplishment. But tonight I noticed that Quinten’s pants were hanging on him and also noticed that those pants were the pants that were really tight a couple of months ago. So I had him get on the scale. Since his last appointment, he has lost 20 pounds! I’m trying to figure out why. I make sure he’s getting three meals plus snacks every day and that his portions are quite a bit bigger than mine. Besides cleaning up our diet, the only other thing is that we’ve stopped the Axona shakes…..but that’s only been for this month.
I’m searching google right now for suggestions but many of the articles talk about weight loss and late-stage Alzheimer’s. He definitely isn’t late-stage. I have, however, found several articles mentioning the fact that weight loss is common. Several of the articles have mentioned the increased caloric needs of Alzheimer’s patients due to their constant pacing. Definitely something to consider as I’ve noticed that he is pacing more.
I feel that I’ve done well in cleaning up our diets, now I just need to make sure I pack as much nutrition into Quinten’s meals as possible as well as increasing his meals and/or snacks. We haven’t had nuts in the house for the last couple of months and he was eating those like crazy for a while. Maybe I need to make up a trail mix for him.
Looks like more food changes for us!
Filed under Alzheimer's, Diet
I spent a good part of yesterday planning a menu for the week and making a corresponding grocery list. The plan is so pretty but so, so expensive! There is a good chance that I’ve overestimated costs by quite a bit but–for food only–it came to $494. That works out to be $70 a person a week, which isn’t too bad when you figure it’s for 21 meals and 7 snacks–it works out to be $2.50 a meal per person. But it’s still $144 over what I have to spend for food per week. So, it’s back to the drawing board. This plan may not work for me but here it is in case it will work for you.
Remember For Me Cooks 