Monday, January 22, 2018

2018.01.22

Another lost weekend. Nothing gets accomplished when the household is locked down by HD. MW's inability to make decisions is crippling; especially because she runs the show. I can't go anywhere without her and she's incapable of completing simple errands on her own. Oh, she'll try - going to the grocery store or Target by herself - but inevitably she won't buy everything or the right things.

The weekends, then, are a time for me to get things sorted for the next five days. Except this is becoming more and more difficult as the disease progresses. Groceries, for example. First thing Saturday morning, I suggest we go and get that shopping done. MW agrees. Unfortunately, by the time she's eaten breakfast and gotten herself put together, it's already noon. Now we have to do the shopping she wants to do. When that's finished, I nudge her on the groceries again. She agrees and we drive to the store. Uh oh, it looks too crowded. Plus it's kind of warm. Nope. No shopping now. We'll come back later. After dark. When it's cool.

Understandable. She never actually comes into the store with me; only waits in the car. So, okay, we'll come back later.

Doesn't happen.

Doesn't happen Sunday morning either. Or Sunday afternoon. By Sunday evening, I kinda have to put my foot down and tell her that if we don't go, she don't eat.

And so forth and so on.

***

Three noteworthy behavioral event's happened over the weekend. The least pleasant of which was a particularly nasty bout of anger from MW. These fits aren't new, but this was oddly timed. The dog doesn't like to eat out of his bowl; he prefers it scattered on the tray. No big deal. Both MW and I sometimes give him food and treats on his tray; not in his bowl. As I did Saturday morning.

No problem

Until, about an hour after the dog had eaten, MW blows up; yelling at me, absolutely enraged. And, initially, I have no idea why. Finally, between all the cussing, I figure it out: she's angry that I put the dog's food on his tray.

The abuse is plenty bad and it continues throughout the weekend - with MW suddenly and aggressively yelling at me for everything - and nothing - I do. Again, that's common enough, it was just the delayed reaction to the event itself that struck me peculiar.

Also, MW had a rare moment of self-reflection when, while railing against pharmaceuticals, she ran that topic around to the point where she admitted she would have to take drugs if it turned out she had Huntington's Disease. But, she added the caveat that this probably wouldn't happen until she's in her 70s.

Good and bad to this: good - for the first time ever she opened herself up to the possibility of taking drugs. Bad - ho shit, 70s? She really things she's got 20+ years left? A lot of agony there. For a brief moment, I actually considered interjecting with an "it's later than you think" comment, but held my tongue. Monster wills out.

Finally, as Sunday comes to a close, and I'm busy cooking and cleaning well into the night, MW gets annoyed because I'm not sitting with her in front of the television. She demands to know why we didn't accomplish anything over the weekend.

So I gave her an account of all the time we'd spent spinning our wheels due to her indecisiveness (of course, I phrase it much more politely). She looked confused, and I had to go over it all a few times before she could place the events.

She lost the weekend. It simply slipped away from her. And, though I know better than to read too much into these things, she really did look like it bothered her. Like she knew it wasn't right; the way she'd behaved.

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