“Do you remember anything about last night’s bathroom ordeal?”  She answered, “I remember you saying there’s poop everywhere.”  I asked the question because Mary Ann so often has little or no memory of times that have included lots of fainting.  In fact, Mary Ann seems to remember very little of the difficult times.  What a blessing! I, however, do remember.

The night did not go well for the first few hours after the bathroom debacle.  Mary Ann was up every few minutes, sitting on the side of the bed, not sure why.  As a result, both of us were exhausted this morning.  Mary Ann was especially confused about most everything.  The fainting continued.  When she ended up in bed after breakfast, I decided to lie down also.

Both before and after our naps, the fainting was constant.  Every time she stood up, she fainted.  That meant that I needed to be within a few feet of her all the time.  It is interesting that even though she fainted every time she popped up, what would seem like a natural deterrent did not work.  Since she has no awareness of the fainting, it does not work its way into her consciousness when she feels the need to stand up.  Most of the times she stood up and started to try to get around the front of the chair, seemingly headed somewhere, she could not tell me why she stood up and where she was going.

As the day wore on, the fainting began to subside.  I suggested that we attend the Evening Service at church tonight.  While, as usual, there was no verbal response, a little while after I asked about church, she stood up.  When I asked where she was headed, she answered that she was going to get her shoes.  That was her way of answering my question about church.  It is hard to explain just how frustrating it is to have no verbal clues to help discover her thoughts or intentions.  I have to wait for some physical movement to determine what she has decided.  What is more frustrating is to ask, get one answer, and then seconds later discover by her movements that she is actually doing the opposite of what she said.  She said, “no,” she is not interested in doing whatever.  Then she immediately gets up to do what she just said “no” to.  It is just the nature of the misfiring that goes on due to the Parkinson’s Disease Dementia, but it is nonetheless frustrating.

We did go to church.  She did very well.  It was sort of odd to realize that those who saw us, had no idea what we had just gone through with the fainting and bathroom nightmare.  It would have served no purpose to do anything other than just say, we are doing okay.  One commented on this blog.  She may have been aware of what we had gone through last night.  It does help to know that there are some who track how we are doing.  Caring enough to read about our days is a precious gift to us.

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