Returned.

I have returned from Colorado - aka Redneck Republican Evangelical Twilight Zone. Ohh yes. There should have been a TV camera following me around - "Look at the city girl! Sleeping in a room with $500,000 worth of firearms and dead animals surrounding her! Look at her miraculously manage to keep her mouth shut as the Bible thumpers tell her that George Bush was sent from God to save the country and Newt Gengrich should be our next president! Look at her run in fear from the scorpions in the yard!" I survived. They are nice nice people. Just very... different. In a 180 degree different world than I am in. It was bizarre. I'm still glad I went though. It meant a lot to both of them, I know. Lots of sun and going to bed early.

Took Dad to the doctor today. Was a very good and a not so good day there. Was good because he was in a real good mood. I shared with him Dave and I are engaged and he was real positive about it - he said "I like Dave, he's a good kid" and patted me on the knee. Asked me a couple questions about the kids etc. I half expected him to flip me a bunch of crap about my divorce or something but he was 100% positive.

He took a memory/dementia test - its 20 questions - basics like "What city are we in?" "What year are we in?" to "Spell 'World' for me." In the past 2 years he's gotten scores of 14-16. January he got a 14. Today he got a 9. Not good. So she's put him on another dementia drug, because his memory is slipping at a pretty alarming rate. The antidepressants seem to work though. He's not feeling social at all still but he's not as crabby.

He's still having very vivid dreams about cops showing up, parties upstairs, people in his room playing guitar, bugs biting him etc. The doctor very logically walked him through what was happening at night and got him to realize these are very vivid dreams and not really happening because they just aren't possible, as he's been insisting to me they have been. None of his "But you don't live here!!" shit. So that was also positive.

The best thing is though that she ordered him a special walker - he's so tall that he despises the "regular" one - he has to hunch over to use it, which hurts his back, so he only uses that damn worthless cane. So he's pretty excited about the new walker, as it makes getting around SO much easier. I'm relieved because he's so wobbly all the time that this will really help prevent a fall. I will worry much less about him with it.

Sidenote: if there's anyone in the PDX area that knows where I might donate his old walker (I want it to go to someone that really NEEDS it and isn't just too cheap to buy one) please let me know. The VA isn't the place to donate - as he got his newest one free from the VA...
After the doc appointment I asked if I could take him out to dinner. I asked if he wanted steak, pasta, anything. He picked KFC. HAHAH!!

Then the best part of today - when I dropped him off I kissed his cheek and told him I loved him and he told me "Thank you for dinner and such a nice day today." I about fell over. It's moments like that I will treasure when he's gone.