The Dentist

Thursday Bob had to go with Sarah and me to the dentist. Then we had to return the very next day for Bob to get his teeth cleaned. Yeah, that was a little messed up, but the dentist is only five minutes from the house and it got him out of the house both days.

He has been sleeping with his teeth in at night, and they have been falling out in the middle of the night, and then he tries to put them back in. This results in a few hours of lost sleep because he is messing with his teeth. I was unaware of this problem until we went to the dentist and he told me he wanted them to fix his teeth from falling out. Yeah, sorry guys, but I did giggle some with the idea of his teeth falling out at night.

I had the hygienist talk to him about taking his teeth out at night and soaking them. Now the routine will be that after he receives his chocolate milk at night he will also take his teeth out. Hopefully, that will fix the problem.

The TV is another problem that I am going to have to figure out how to set the timer on. Rob seems to think that you have to set the timer every night; I am not sure about that one. He doesn’t turn his TV off and falls asleep while watching it. In the middle of the night a commercial will come on loud and wake him up. He doesn’t know what time it is and them gets confused if it is time to get up or continue to sleep. So between the TV and his teeth, he isn’t getting a proper night sleep. Sleep deprivation is a serious issue with Alzheimer’s patients. If they don’t get enough sleep they can get very nasty and cranky.

He has really enjoyed his beer and thinks it is great he can drink again. So he is drinking enough liquids. He hardly drinks anything else though. That is alright with me. I just have to make sure that the refrigerator is always stocked.

Next week we have a pottery field trip and another VA project with the kids. I don’t tell him about events now until the day we go. He worries too much about the time, date, and how we are going to get there. It is best now just to go with the flow and enjoy the moment.

Give him a call this week end. He loves to hear from you all. Ask him who our new president is. He can’t remember how to pronounce Obama’s name nine out of ten times and comes up with his own name that is funny. We have been asking him all week about the president so he might get it right when you call. It just depends on what kind of a day he is having. Sometimes he says the new president will be good, and then other times he says….well, we will just leave it at that.