I have asked her three times with fairly long intervalsin between to let me help her in some way.  She chose the chicken salad for lunch, along with the usual Pepsi and Fritos.  She just could not negotiate the fork.  She was putting the handle in her mouth. When I offered to help she said that she needed to do it for herself.

I got from the fridge the other half of a sandwich she had eaten on Monday.  I microwaved it just to warm it a bit and soften the cheese.  I put that on her plate with the chips and chicken salad in hopes that she might use her hands to eat it since the fork wasn’t doing well.

It was probably fifteen minutes of her getting nothing into her mouth, even the Pepsi, (she had also refused to let me get that to her mouth so that she could get some through the straw) before I offered again.  She still refused.

Just before eating I weighed her.  She had gotten as high as 135 pounds a couple of years or so ago — then 125.  More recently she has been under 120.  The last time I weighed her here is was 117.  This time it was 113.  She needs to eat!!!

When I came back to start this post, she was beginning to get some of the sandwich eaten, using the fork to pick it up.  I just went back to check again, and the Sinamet must have kicked in since she is now getting some of the chicken salad to her mouth.  That is a very good thing.

While, of course, I love ice cream and will find any excuse to head to Baskin & Robbins to get some, I also do so to get as many calories as possible into Mary Ann.  While she may run out of patience trying to eat chicken salad and a deli meat sandwich, she will manage to get ice cream eaten, even if it demands letting me help.

She ended up eating about four bites of all the food on her plate.  She did let me feed her a raisin cookie I brought home from the coffee shop for her yesterday.

It is very difficult to watch Mary Ann try to eat on her own when things are not going well.  One reason she was having so much trouble this afternoon is that her eyes were shut for most of the time she was trying to eat.  She was in eyes slammed shut mode, along with the return of hallucinations.

Last night did turn out to be one that included a number of times up.  Shortly after going to bed she had another divorce dream.  When I came in to check on her, she was sort of surprised to see me.  Hopefully, the fact that I am with her 24/7, those dreams will begin to subside.  She is fine when she is not in hallucination mode.  In fact, last night, she did say it was a nightmare she had had.  At least she seemed very quickly to be aware that it was not real when I sat down next to her.

She got up early this morning given how often we had been up during the night (her usual pattern on those nights).  It was not long after breakfast that she needed to lie down again.  She slept until about 2pm.  That is when we began the lunch process that went so badly.

She sat for a while after lunch, some of the time in her head in her lap position. After a while, around 4:15pm, she just got up and headed into the bedroom (I caught up with her quickly and let her lead us to where she was going).  She wanted to change her jeans for pajama bottoms.

After that change, I offered her some vanilla ice cream from the freezer.  She let me help her with a good sized bowl  Shortly thereafter she went in to lie down and watch television.  She was very restless for a while, with lots of hallucinations, this time interspersed with moments of lucidity.

It is 9pm.  She has had her pills and has been fairly quiet for a while.  I would not presume to predict how the night will go.

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