09/08/2026
Saturday, our plans to head to the coast changed with a single phone call.
My heart sank when I saw it was Bill’s assisted living facility.
For three days, he had refused to go down to the dining hall for meals. He wouldn’t get out of bed so they could put fresh sheets on. And he was barely touching the food they brought to his room.
So Tim and I got in the car and drove to Bill.
We got him showered and dressed and took him out for his favorite BBQ, hoping that might get him interested in eating.
He barely touched his food.
I kept asking if his stomach felt okay. He said yes.
Later, he casually mentioned that he had thrown up a few days earlier. When I asked if he had told the staff that he threw up, he looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about.
He didn’t remember telling me.
This is one of the most difficult parts of Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia. I never really know if Bill is telling me something that happened yesterday, something that happened years ago, or something that didn’t happen at all.
And when he can’t reliably tell us how he feels, it becomes that much harder to know when something is actually wrong.
I’m now working on finding Bill a new primary care doctor within about 10 minutes of his assisted living facility, because getting him to appointments is becoming another challenge.
And I can’t shake the feeling that we’re getting closer to the point where Bill needs the next level of care.
Maybe the small blessing in all of this is that he doesn’t fully understand what’s happening to him anymore.
But we do.
And that may be one of the hardest parts of caring for someone through this disease. ❤️
