Hi everyone! I’m trying to keep a good schedule with writing my bloggy thing, I hope you are all safe and well.
Schedules and routines are a fairly new thing for me. My entire life was sort of off the cuff as far as making schedules. Sure I had a schedule to be at work both when working for myself and for a company, but it all seems so different than what my life involves now.
My last job, although with a major retail distribution company, allowed me to make my own schedule, a schedule that fit my job to my life, not the other way around. My photography also allowed for that. I would only schedule or advertise when and if I wanted a few extra bucks, I preferred shooting for pleasure. Same as when I refinished furniture, I could work as long or as short as I wanted, then sell it when I was ready.
I left my jobs just over a year ago, things were just getting too hard for me. I tried keeping one of my jobs, but I was constantly overwhelmed in my head; things just wouldn’t go as easy and freely as they used to. On that particular job, I was now using my hands and brain too much; jobs were taking too long and I wasn’t making “time” like I used to. Jobs that would take 15 minutes were now taking 35 min. Small things, and big things like physical strength and endurance were waning. I left.
Even though I could schedule my jobs around my life, it was still too much. Now, over the year , other types of scheduling have happened; and with the addition of the move and new routines, man……. its hard to catch up.
Routine and scheduling becomes a part of you when you have Dementia. It becomes purposeful.
At first, I will admit, that I secretly started scheduling things. I would make notes ( and often lose them) to keep me remembering, I started using a physical notebook ( but a bought funky ones to hide the fact I was using written reminders, no legal pads or ledgers). Then I started utilizing electronic reminders, most of which I still use now and have upgraded to A.I. like Google mini and stuff.
I tried using electronic calendars but failed so miserably at even entering the information, kept forgetting to sync stuff together or even enter information, it was annoying and defeating. The physical notepad was always best, always digging the old school stuff. Slowly I moved to A.I. as it just was easier to tell Google keep my stuff scheduled. Now I use my notebook for ideas and notes, it is totally illegible, written all over pages, I’m certain no one will be able to transcribe it, but its mine, all the messy epiphany ideas, jumbled together like a sweet portrait. I can pick out a few things, but not everything; its absolutely awesome and completely artistic!
When scheduling, for me, entered into a purposeful thing, it was a super scary time. For the life of me, I could not figure out why I couldn’t just keep it in my head. It was almost a secret shame. Of course I thought of “oh! you are just getting older!” but, honestly, I wasn’t that old, I knew deep down inside it was way more than that.
I have grown to find that it is part of my executive function and my short term memory; Frontal lobe, important cognitive skills in humans, such as emotional expression, problem solving, memory, language, judgment. In addition to that, I was having problems transcribing what people were saying to me, Temporal Lobe, primary auditory perception, left side in most people, is involved in understanding language and learning and remembering verbal information, I have very little damage to my right side, not too much affecting me from there.
So, it is important for me to have reminders and schedule NOW, real reminders, verbal ones, like the ones my grandson gives me every day……and follows me to my room to make sure I take my medication on time, I love him.
Keeping routines is important with E.O.A. or any other Dementia. I love when my days flit along, even love the days I just get nothing done more than a coffee or two, read a few things and doze off, or the days when I feel I just woke up and its actually 2pm ( that is sometimes 10 hours of awake time for me and it seems like 2 hours) , it is both joyful and bothersome.
I do my best to “schedule things”, but I do not always succeed. It doesn’t bother me though.
Life, for me, has always been about moderation, work smart not hard, in a way, I’m sticking with that. I keep the important stuff scheduled and do my best to be accurate; with all other things, a little bit of this & a little bit of that……
Next…….
This weird new thing has been happening to me. Hiccups. Not regular hiccups, strange noise hiccups. I wish I could explain the noise. My daughter just laughs at me. It has only happened a couple of times, but it is so unexpected! Its not like I have eaten anything too fast or swallowed too hard, it just happens out of the blue. Random, crazy hiccups.
Now, in the process of Alzheimer’s, hiccups are prevalent in the later stages of the disease; having said that, I have A-typical ( Hippocampus Sparing) and I will not follow the usual progression of this disease, sort of. Here is a short video about A-typical, I can see where some of this applies to me https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=285&v=w4xQeNQVFoc&feature=emb_logo
and here is an article with the definition of A-typical https://oxfordmedicine.com/view/10.1093/med/9780198779803.001.0001/med-9780198779803-chapter-5
I’m not saying I’m in late stage,, throughout my diagnosis time, I have varied in the (3 stage model ) mild to mid stages, the pain could be more towards later stage ( who knows) ; it just makes this whole thing more complicated. You never know what to expect. Its like the old “Bits & Bites” commercial ( a snack food of pretzels, cheezy things, doritos and other such things) ” every handful…..a whole new ball game”.
Its also true that it is NOT related to my diagnosis. Its all so confusing.
Anyway, the hiccups are funny but annoying, I hope they are a fluke, more on that later if it becomes a thing.
Good note: new medication has relived my pain immensely. Let’s hope it works for the long haul.
CBD Oil is an ongoing subject with me as of late. I have always been adverse to taking “pharma”, and I am researching all I can on CBD Oil. More on that later as well.
And now…… A little Ray LaMontage to soothe your soul, Stay well my friends. xo Jan xo
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