Chapter 578 - Bothering Matters

 Today she has been attempting to remove threads entangled around the wheel axels of her wheel chair and her walker (used simply as a trolley these days on which to keep stuff). She was doing this between 1000 and 1200. At times rubbing marks on the timber floor.

I had requested Wild Dog Carers to send someone to do a "Domestic" (cleaning) at our place this afternoon so I had her attempt to remove all the rubbish off the floor in her sewing room so the vacuum cleaner could be used in there. I cancelled the Domestic and other services from beyond Sunday when it became obvious that my throat was on fire and another COVID test was in order; thankfully the result was negative again. Anyway, now an hour after my requested time for the Domestic no one has arrived even though I rang 1/2 an hour ago, leaving a message on their answering system. Looks like I will need to put clean sheets etc on our beds before going to bed tonight, a chore I hate doing and leave for a cleaner.

The rubbish on the floor of her sewing room mostly consists of the tatters of chopped up T shirts she decided last week to cut into small pieces for "doll clothes". Not cut into neat rectangles, just simply hacked. This activity digressed into pulling threads from the edges of pieces to create frayed edges, and doing so left many threads on the floor to become entangled in the wheels of the wheel chair and walker.

One day she wanted to hang our washed clothes in the cupboard. The task began alright until she noticed that items hung a week or so ago were not hung very well so spent a couple of hours making corrections. wasted time and effort from my point of view.

A week ago she came across a zip-locked plastic bag with a very large white sticky label attached. The label needed to be removed, I don't know why. She worked at picking off the paper and the glue, sometimes applying water from one of her drink bottles, for at least 4 days; one day I timed the activity for 4 hours. I'm unsure whether the task was completed or the bag thrown out.

Yesterday I logged her into a Zoom session of Dance for PD. Perhaps the music used, perhaps the voice of the woman leading it, but about half way through she began to feel ill, she was "floating", needed "to go to sleep" so as the session ended I placed her on her bed where she slept dyskinesia free for an hour and a half. I noticed during the session she attempted the arm movements but hardly ever the leg movements.

While the services of Wild Dog were cancelled for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week she has not been going to bed about 1830, rather, after I put her into night clothes, she stayed up, in her sewing room, destroying pieces of fabric as described above. I found I was able to stay awake as well, pottering about until at least 2130 and I think we both had a better night's sleep as a result. So tonight when the evening Wild Dog evening service  begins again, I will ask the person just to change her clothes and incontinence pants and pad and return her to her wheel chair. Then I will put her into bed at an appropriate time.

The scab on the knuckle on the toe (equivalent position to an index finger) still has a scab on it, so each morning I place a dry dressing on it and take extra care that her left foot is not dragged on the floor. Her left foot is the so-called dropped foot on which the toes curl under. She wears socked 24 hours each day as well to prevent rubbing, as on bed clothes, to prevent damage.

While I'm out on Friday afternoons for 3 hour respite I have again started to buy her "puzzle magazines" which she often picks up to solve the crossword puzzles. Perhaps I'll subscribe to them for postal delivery; that will give her something to look forward to.

I have had no further feedback from the visitor scheme hoping to find someone to visit her. Perhaps no one wishes to spend time with someone in her deteriorating state.

Recently I bought a small hand held vacuum cleaner having a nozzle suitable for sucking insects and dust out of the gutters beneath sliding doors. She has spent hours attempting to wipe the gutters at our sliding back door clean by using damp tissues. The first time she used this new cleaner she decided to find out what had been sucked into it, so she disassembled it on her lap, spilling fluff, grit and insect carcasses all over herself. We once had a similar cleaner that she destroyed by pulling the filters and flaps out of it.

We have several tall columns for stacking DVD and CD disks into. Periodically she will take all the jewel cases out of a column, open the cases, take out the disks and after inspecting them, return them to the cases and then back into the columns. This job may take all day, for no particular purpose.

Last week she sorted heaps of magazines, ripping out any pages she wished to keep. A day or so later I was asked to throw out the  resulting piles of pages.

Her laptop-like machine and its associated large monitor are kept in our dining area on a wheeled trolley. From time to time she likes to sort the cables between the devices so that they do not resemble spaghetti. Invariably minor repairs are required to return the system to a working state.

Some time ago she made a small roll pillow, maybe 300mm long and   100mm in diameter. It was ideal for placing behind her neck while seated in the wheel chair. One day she found something wrong with the hand stitching she had done at one end so she pulled the bad stitching undone, but did not stop until the other seams were undone as well and the pillow was no more.