My typical day part 1: I’m a bee

My typical day is really full as you can imagine.  It’s hard to fathom how some families take care of the kids, the dogs, the house, and whatever else and it’s just a lot to handle. How do people do it? I wake up at about 4:30 am every morning. I stay in bed, try to force myself back to sleep  but I cant. I turn on the TV and put one of my pillows in front of Rick so that he doesn’t see too much light and I don’t wake him up. I can’t sleep anyway.  I go into the kitchen and do the dishes from last night. By this time is about 6 o’clock and I make a cup of coffee for Rick with MCT Oil, scientist say it is good for the brain, it’s supposed to help keep him in ketosis which helps the brain.

I wake him up and we make the bed together and then we do our morning ritual.  Sometimes I feel like Miss Maisel from that series on Amazon. The wives from the 1940’s and 1950’s took care of everything and they were always ready, well dressed, hair done and make up on. Like Donna Reed! (see Demophonic.com song “Life of Donna Reed”) Somehow they found the time to take care of everything and themselves. How? I am still trying to figure this out or am I a turtle?

His bathroom ritual: Why do I sit on the edge of the bathtub while he is in the bathroom? I have to hand him the toilet paper or a wipe because he won’t remember to wipe. He asks me every single time “what do I do? Do I throw this in here?” meaning the little wastebasket that I have next to the toilet. I tell him throw it down inside the toilet. He doesn’t know what I mean. So I say throw it down. If I don’t explain this, he will walk around the house holding it and asking where to put it, or leave it on the sink. I am like a century sitting there and have to be on top of things because If I don’t tell him, he will pull up his pajama pants without wiping. Nightmare! I have to pay close attention to everything and be aware 24/7.

Something funny happened the other day. In my AD support group online, someone told me that he told his wife to jump into bed while he got her pills ready and a few minutes later he heard a loud crash. What happened? He ran into the bedroom where wife was and she had literally jumped into their bed flattening it on one side. She was laying on the flattened side and he thought to himself I have to be careful of what I say. The bed was on the floor, his wife was on the floor and  I wanted to laugh. What else is there to do in this situation? Life is short and we need to laugh every day about any little silly thing. Life is too hard to take it too seriously, right?

I turn on the heater in Rick’s bathroom to warm it up in there. (The secret to a successful marriage is separate bathrooms). When it’s time for him to get into the shower its drama, he always acts like I’m crazy when I tell him to take off his pajamas, undershirt, underwear and socks. Sometimes he gets mad. He says “what are you talking about?” I say you aren’t going to get into the shower with your clothes on, are you? He thinks that I’m joking. I kind of try to take off his clothes and he gets mad. The clock just turned to 7 am and I have to get ready for work. After some coercing I manage to get him into the shower. When he feels the water he screams “It’s too cold!” I try to make the water just the right temperature but it is always either too hot or too cold. “It’s too hot” he says. And lately he doesn’t know the difference between the words cold and hot and he says “it hurts”! Water hurts? I try my best. Lately I’ve switched to giving him baths because it’s just easier. I tell him to wash everywhere and he is messing around like a kid.

There’s a game when he takes off his t-shirt where he pulls it over his head and peeks out from the opening. I say, you do this every time. Please take off your glasses, he is blind without his glasses, he still doesn’t want to take off his glasses and I can’t start a fight so I just let them get wet. Don’t people say you have to pick your battles. I put the shampoo on his head and its cold compared to the hot water. I remind myself of my mother washing anything. She was a tough zaftig woman who wasn’t super gentle. The water runs down his face and he has to lift his glasses up to get the soap out of his eyes. I grab the soap; wash under his arms and all the dirtiest parts. After rinsing off, I wrap him in a towel like a kid. He gets out of the shower, I put toothpaste on his toothbrush and he brushes his teeth. He likes to run the toothbrush under the water and then knock off all of the toothpaste. I put Minoxidil on the small spot where his hair is thinning (he loves his hair so we try to keep it) and Aveeno calming lotion on his face and deodorant under his arms. I brush his hair and blow it dry. Then I put on his T-shirt, undies, socks and shirt and jeans and a hoodie. I can finally get ready myself, and of course, I am late.