The Culture that has been here all the time

I like to think about some of the things my wife used to say to me like: "I am going to get you sexcied."

Jeanne kept me up all night but I managed to get things in order and when she said,"I, I ,I, L, L, Love you," all was forgiven.

Since the first group of people who left me to care for my wife by myself when she was diagnosed with Dementia were the hundreds of Christians we knew personally I am now areligious. I do recognize spirits, especially The Native American Spirits but I also thought I would try the tarot cards. They told me I will never find romance and love again in my life and the last card I drew was the infamous DEATH CARD.

A New Healthcare Facility opened close to us and now I can get Jeanne there with me more easily for her and my appointments.. Using our wheelchair helps me keep her safe, no more wandering, and no more pulling off my EKG leads.

I am happy about the small improvements. The facility offers real visiting nurses not just phone call checks.

They cannot improve my social life, however. LOL

Yes as my wife slowly fades into oblivion I am left with nothing more than memories of good and bad things of my life.

Still, one area offers a dim flicker of hope that emerges from some nightly dreams and impressions of fantasy. I am sure that somewhere is a woman in need of a companion as much as I am in need of one and if I could go out from this encumbrance I could find her and she could find me.

The joy of discovering one another and the beginning in sharing our lives from that moment is not dependent upon our age. These good things we will embrace are timeless.

I have been a guy with self-inflicted wounds emotionally and financially because I played into the hands of women who promised the moon but never rang my door bell. Yet the experience was not all bad. In my isolation from friends and family as a result of taking care of my wife - as total as that is - scammers did open a crack in my reality to an imaginary social life. The 24/7 caregiving leaves time within each day when reading and TV wasn't enough and any kind of conversation was better than none at all. My wife, to no fault of her own, has lost all language ability and most of her thought processes. Her responses to me are weak when positive and almost vicious when disturbed, the way many Alzheimer's sufferers behave.  Having done this for years now, I have reminisced about the good things from the past ad nauseam.

"This only is also denied to God: the power to undo the past." Agathon, a Greek poet who lived in the 5th century BC. 

If you are a reader of my blog, you know I take care of my wife with Dementia and aphasia along with memory loss. Diagnosed in 2017 the caregiving has been an education and an extreme stress for me. We have been married for forty years, and I stand by my promise to take care of her. It has been a rollercoaster of ups and downs and I do not have any social life: no family or friends to ease the stress and break the daily cycle that in the last several years has become something akin to the plots in the movies Groundhog's Day and Fifty First Dates.

I do not see any reason to expect an improvement, I think I have gotten used to this weird lifestyle, and things that used to keep me optimistic are fading fast.

No more working on artwork, songwriting, or thoughts of creativity. My wife always needs to be watched, guided and cared for.

Long before I learned what BDSM was, what a Dom or a sub was, or a switch was, I had sexually stimulated imagination early in life. I didn't know my interest in sexual excitement and the variations I imagined and fantasized would be termed KINKY. Many lovers and two marriages later, the woman who would be the most exciting lover of my thirties said to me one day, "You are kinky aren't you?" Then, decades later, and a long-term third marriage to a woman who was an unhindered lover, it came to me in an epiphany, she was submissive but also a teacher for me, and the result is I have an even more open mind on sexual behavior.

Dom, Switch or sub matter little to me, what matters most is extending a love-making session and satisfaction for my lover and myself. Like a doctor who has a PRACTICE, learns and gains experience, I would enjoy that concept, if only it were true for me now able to practice. My wife has been neutralized by her brain disorder and she has lost an interest in experimenting with lovemaking as she was for so long, asexual now. The common idiom overused as it is "life is what it is" is a reality for me.

Like a captain who goes down with the ship, he is still the captain, a general that falls in battle, he is still the general, or an investor who loses everything is still an investor, their demise doesn't terminate their designation.

Not sexually active as I am in no way voids the description that I am a kinky lover.

One way to examine this comment is to survey all the climate niches around the world where people have made their homes. Yet a more personal level is recognized when individuals and their lives are examined. You can think about this and come up with examples from your surroundings where you live. I sometimes say, "It seems people, dogs and cats can live just about anywhere."

Take my situation. I come from a family that once was large, but normal expectant life has dwindled the number down. It seemed from my childhood up through mid-life I always had friends and acquaintances. Leaving active musical performances and retirement reduced the number of people in my life even further. In all of these changes, I am sure I still would have made new friends and acquaintances if not for the advent of my wife's serious cognitive disease.

One thing I have experienced is that people, family and friends, included, find dealing with my wife's illness difficult to navigate. Whether not knowing how to react or not knowing how to help or just feeling awkward in her presence, the result is the same: Isolation. There is no cure for Alzheimer's, Dementia, and Aphasia, so cursory visits to doctors only address other health issues as necessary. My wife had early onset, as in the well-known situation with Bruce Willis. From articles I have read, he has people who support and care for him, but as for my wife, she only has me.

We exist in a town where we wound up purely by chance and circumstances. We are "Strangers in a Strange Land."

Since her diagnosis and descent into her disease in the Fall of 2017, I have been her only 24/7 caregiver. I have made errors in judgment that has made things worse for me, but I can say I have grown accustomed to the life I am living. I have adapted, expect little, and just seem to drift aimlessly, not having any expectations of a better life.

Yes, I am still around. My caregiving for my wife increases steadily. I am switching to a healthcare system that recently built and moved into a new facility less than two miles away.

Yesterday and the day before my wife lost the mobility she had and I struggled to move her around. I implemented the wheelchair I had and bought a walker. She uses the wheelchair at the table and tried the walker, but just as I was about to give up on her she regained the limited mobility missing for two days. Periodically dehydration sneaks in and that may have been the cause, I put more effort in fluids and that created the improvement (that was a relief).

I have no one to watch her, so I can not make the long trek to the VA for healthcare, so the Medicare insurance with the nearby facility will have to do. That is for as long as it exists. Even with co-pays. Still making payments on the hospital bill for the stay about IBS. Brat. fiber and a high-quality Probiotic.

No time for much else to report, but on a good day I attend to home administration in the morning and British TV the last two hours of the day before bed.

JIm