I am going to endeavor to catch things up on here since the summer of 2009 when I was transported to my "twilight zone" and last posted from the time we had picnics at Lewis' house in Melbourne.
Since then there were some major changes in Lewis' health and living conditions and it became very apparent by the fall of 2009 that he needed some interaction and intervention. I flew down to Washington in November and after talking to him and his 'houseguests' he decided he would come to Alaska to live with Everett and me in Sterling. We flew up on December 5, 2009 and he moved in with us. We had a wonderful Christmas and Lewis was settling in pretty comfortably.
However, the new year of 2010 brought some drastic changes in his health and physically and mentally. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and he also had increasingly frequent falls in the house and out of his hospital bed at home. By March he was having severe changes in his thought processing and making some decisions that were dangerous to him (such as going to walk to town over the ice and snow in March). He was falling more often and was put in to the hospital and from there his doctor decided he needed to go in to an assisted living home. I was no longer able to give him the 24 hour care that he needed to be safe. He moved to a nice log home about 5 miles away and we celebrated his 77th birthday there on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010.
He stayed there until September and then moved to a place that was closer to our home ( a mile away) and we got him settled in there. He spent time walking around outside and enjoying the big yard and watching all of the moose browse and playing with the 2 dogs that lived there. It was nice to be so close to him and we visited several times a week and I took him out for rides and to eat out often. By November he was falling more and he fell in his room and cracked his collarbone. Of course, it had to be on his left side and he is left-handed so it did not do any good to try to get him to wear his brace so it could heal better. A week later he was outside and fell again and rolled down the lawn a ways. He got to go for an ambulance ride the first time and this time I drove him to the E.R. to have them make sure he didn't do any further damage or any new trauma. Many hours later we went back to his cabin and he settled in for the night. No new trauma. He continued there through Thanksgiving and Christmas. On New Year's Eve he was found unconscious on the bathroom floor. After the EMT's came they took him to the hospital again for evaluation. Everett and I went with him and many hours later we took him back home again. |
| Lewis at the Sunrise Mountain ALH |
By the next Monday when I took him for a followup visit to his physician, she determined that he should be admitted and do further testing to see what was going on with him. He was in and out of the hospital for the month of January. While he was there he started to run an elevated temp of 103 and had very strong tremors that shook his whole bed. At that time the tests determined that he has Parkinson's Dementia and it was magnified by a urinary tract infection (Cause of the fever). They started him on some new meds for the Parkinson's and he responded very well to that. For a few days we weren't sure if he would make it. It was a slow recovery and getting hem to walk again or feed himself was a real battle. Some days just getting him to talk was difficult. One of my granddaughters walked to see him every day after school. Megan is really fond of him. Our January weather can be tough but she was there every day to visit him. Wendy came by to encourage him and gave him some pampering too. On the 24th of January I drove him to Seward to be admitted to the hospital there on a swing bed status who they could work on PT and strengthen him for moving in to long-term care in Seward.
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| Aaaahhh, a foot massage by Wendy...how nice! |
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| Megan visiting Lewis after school |
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