Papaw has dementia. He's officially been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. There are medicines that can slow the progression down, but it's irreversible. He asks the same questions over and over, forgets most of the information from the day, and sometimes does strange things that we cannot explain. Our clan has learned to just roll with the punches and we all provide support when we can.
Papaw says some off the wall things. The best thing to do is just go along with what he's saying and try to track with him best we can. He talks in metaphors a lot like "where are we in the process" and "do we have all the pieces to the puzzle to make sure we are on track?" things like that. He spent so many years in business I think he refers back to that type of thinking. Sometimes papaw is suspicious of everything. I haven't figured out exactly what sets him off every time, but I do know when things are out of the ordinary or his routine is thrown off, that makes him a bit irritable. But 90% of the time, he is a happy jolly sweet man.
Last weekend we were having tacos for lunch. Bryce cooked some taco chicken meat and we had a taco bar. Papaw was making his plate and as I looked over, I spotted a little green guy in his taco that I don't think should have been there. Did it hurt to add it to his taco? Not at all. Would it have tasted good in his taco? Possibly. Did it look strange to the rest of us? Absolutely. But our rule of thumb we try to think about is "Does it hurt if papaw does XYZ?" Just because something is strange or weird, doesn't mean it's wrong and we need to pick our battles. Moving forward, I'll just keep the fruit at the table, away from the taco stuff :)
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