MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2010

Today I got home from work and asked Carol if she wanted to join me for dinner. She said that she would because she had worked up an appetite from trying to find her keys. I told her I had a set and she asked to see them. So, I showed the keys to her, and she also insisted that I actual start the car with them to distinguish they weren't Grandpa's. After all this is settled, she says, "I also haven't been able to find Tommy anywhere." "Carol, he's over at Emeritus in Jensen Beach. You've visited him a handful of times there." "I know, I just miss him." So, we go to check out her medicine and get her all set on that. The problem with the patch these days is that she doesn't shower very often and so it wont stick to her back most days. I tell her she should shower, and she agrees, but always puts it off.

I got her to eat a dinner of pork chops and Hawaiian bread with orange juice. Throughout which she commented on how she missed my Grandpa despite how much of a pain in the butt he was, but how "that's just how it is now." I told her that Cynthia and her were going to visit him tomorrow.

If you hadn't gotten the update on her this weekend, here's what you missed: I was working from home Friday, so I saw her come and go on 3 short walks. Before I left for Joel's I got her set up with her meds, a big lunch and a bunch of easy to grab and eat foods. As told by Dona (the neighbor and Carol and Tom's friend), after I left Carol decided to go on another walk, this one heading with her purse and her big check book binder to the bank that no longer exists. Then she was planning on walking to the gas station to get cigarettes. On Saturday she was obsessed with finding her keys, to the point that she implored Bill (Dona's husband) to help her create a new key. My phone was dead for most the day on Saturday, so when I got home at 8, I had missed all the drama. Carol was already getting ready for bed.

Yesterday I opened all the windows and doors in the house for the perfect weather, and Carol and I went for a long walk. I let her lead the way so if I ever need to come looking for her, I now know the path she likes to take. Then we hung out for awhile, me reading, her fussing with the trees in the yard for awhile. Dona and Bill invited us to go over to Conche Joes on the Indian River a little later, and although Carol didn't talk very much, she didn't seem anxious at all. When we got home she was excited to eat some of her little birthday cake she insisted we buy on Thursday, something she hadn't yet touched, surprisingly.