Visiting Grandpa

Today was a good day...here is an update and some recent pictures :) Special thanks to Lisa and Tana for being there during some recent rough times.....

Since we have been back in Iowa, I have tried to help with Grandpa's care. I can't do much, but helping Mom, Dad, and Grandma bounce around ideas and going to visit him nearly every day hopefully helps.....It's kind of a long story, but for now, here's the short version. Grandma and Grandpa & Mom and Dad all moved into the same house last spring so that Mom and Dad could help out with anything that Grandma and Grandpa needed. He has has been in and out of the hospital with various things and has pain from some disc issues in his back. He is also now battling dementia, which has been hard on all of the family.



Fast forward to a month ago -- a series of things happened and he ended up in the hospital. During that time, the family pretty much came to the conclusion he probably wasn't going to be able to live at home any longer. He was in the hospital being evaluated (most of it to do things like balance medications & assess his dementia progression) for about 2 weeks. After that stay, we moved him into a nursing home about 40 minutes from us and about 15 minutes from my parents.

While he was there, Grandma, Mom, Dad, Brad and I had a great visit with him...We walked out in the courtyard to enjoy the wonderful weather and the lilacs.



Here are some pictures from our visit.

Mom, Gpa, Me

Me and Gpa making the circle around the courtyard. We talked about plants, flowers, and the fallen trees in the courtyard.

We were both loving the smell of the lilacs, so I picked some on the way back...I was holding Gpa's arm as we walked. He grabbed a leaf off of a plant and when I asked him why he did that, he joked, "it's kinda like we are walking down the aisle" :)

Fast forward to last week - Some more events happened and he ended up back in the hospital for evaluation and had to leave the nursing home.

Fast forward to this week -- I went to visit on Monday night and he was in pretty bad shape..While in the evaluation part of the hospital, he ended up with pneumonia. So Tuesday night after I left, they ended up moving him to the medical part of the hospital. Yesterday was a very scary day as he wasn't doing well at all.

It's amazing what a day makes. Today he when I went to visit he was amazingly better. Don't get me wrong.....The dementia is still a battle...We always talk about things that happened probably before I was born or things that he thinks happened yesterday that happened a couple of years ago. But I think I've started to adjust to this being his "new normal" and I just go along with most of what he says. Then he has moments that he wants to know about things that are going on right now.

Tonight I sat with him after Grandma left, for about an hour and a half, while he ate his dinner. He gobbled it up, which is a change from a few days ago. We looked at pictures on my camera and he laughed about the dogs, and Brad and I being silly....and he thought the pictures of my race were neat. It was nice to see him smiling and laughing again. Right as he was finished eating, I asked him if he was up for a picture so I could sent it out for family to see him doing well today - He said "Sure!" and offered up a cute smile...but I ended up snapping the picture in mid-smile......It's ok though...It was just great to see him doing this well today. :)

He has good days and bad days, and sometimes really bad days, but we just try to roll with it as best we can....and enjoy every minute we have.