Yes, planning and patience and then throwing out the plan but continuing with patience. That’s what the trip to Victoria taught me.
Dementia is sneaky but also somewhat predictable. We knew that while Dad remembered the hotel we always stay in while in Victoria, we weren’t sure if his memory had changed some details for him.
We brought blank sheets of paper, markers and scotch tape. We thought this would help and when my husband and I ran out to pick up pizza and wine the first night, it did help! But when we realized he was not sure where his bathroom was located, we put up a sign….that didn’t help.
We rented a wheelchair this time. Brilliant! It was delivered to our hotel and waiting for us when we arrived. Dad wondered what it was for. Yes, we had discussed it. He was utterly willing and completely cooperative to his credit. We did a lot more walking this time than we did last year as a direct result. But my stupid arthritic thumb stopped me from doing too much of the pushing so my husband had to do most of it.
Dad would neatly pack his suitcase every evening when he went to bed. I would unpack it and lay everything out on the second bed in his bedroom every morning. Out of sight, out of mind. That much I’ve learned about dementia. At one point, he wondered how his hair brush had gotten to Victoria. He also regularly packed his little travel pouch of toiletries which I then regularly unpacked. Patience.
He would often ask “have I been here before” when we would go to places where in fact, yes we had been before. We always happily found new ways of saying “yes, isn’t it wonderful?” and “yes, you remembered!” and “yes, nice to be back.”
Of course, at our favorite restaurant in Victoria (which he remembered!), he really wanted to take the blanket home (they get a draft at certain tables when the door opens) but we kept saying “no can do” on that one.
We brought along 2 word search books and they are like some kind of weirdly addictive activity for Dad. His head goes down, his pen comes up and he works on those word search pages for up to 2 hours sometimes. He did wonder where they came from of course….. My husband noticed that Dad likes to slump over to do his word searching while sitting on the couch so he kept giving him a pillow to put under his book. Dad kept saying “oh this is much better” each and every time. cute.
I did of course have to make some joke about “everyone hand me your cutlery so we have room for dessert” since we could see that Dad was not going to stop eating at our favorite restaurant. It was a huge giant serving and we had been eating all day long already. But having no cutlery didn’t stop him from reaching for more focaccia. It was covered with a cloth napkin so how he knew it was there, I’ll never understand. We put it down on the ledge beside the table.
But here’s the most intriguing thing that happened. We popped into a shop devoted to puzzles. We pulled his wheelchair alongside a stunning live edge wooden table littered with incredibly intricate little wooden puzzle pieces. The lovely staff told us that all their puzzles were graded for difficulty. The one he was at was considered a 5. Difficult in other words. He popped 3 pieces in within 10 minutes. I think he’d still be sitting there now doing all the other puzzles they had put out if we had let him! Yes, we bought one. He promptly did that in the space of an evening – he barely glanced at the view of the inner harbour that night.
Of course, we were just a smidge concerned when we all stood up to get in line to get onto the plane and found Dad holding a coffee cup. At least it was an empty coffee cup and no, he had not drunk from it….we think….we hope! We had our coffee before we went through security so…..yes, he was holding someone else’s coffee cup that happened to be near him. We quickly threw it away.
Handed him his word search puzzle book once we got on the plane and moments later, we arrived in Edmonton. yup. Well, that’s how it felt and that’s a really good thing.
