I cannot believe how taxing it is to have dementia. And to start by teetering on the edge of sanity, and then to have to endure years of gradual decline until hospital visits are more frequent than trips to the grocery store… My God, it’s awful.
My mom visited my dad this morning at the skilled nursing facility and found that he had a very high fever, and was unusually lethargic. My mom alerted the staff, and as a result he’s been transferred back to the hospital. I’m typing this from the emergency room, and I’m waiting for my dad to be admitted. We’re pretty sure that he has aspiration pneumonia.
There’s really no better motivation to take care of your health than to see what happens if you don’t take care of your health. My dad was not an active person. He didn’t exercise very often, and when he did, it wasn’t very rigorous. He also didn’t eat well. He ate a lot of sweets, desserts, sugary drinks, and starchy snacks… And they’ve just wheeled in a man who seems to be having a heart attack. Since we’re sharing a room, I know that he weighs 280 lbs., smokes, and is a meth user.
Talk about motivation to take care of your health. Sure, my dad wasn’t health conscious, but he wasn’t as bad as that guy.
Anyway, my dad has had prostate cancer, a heart attack, several bouts with kidney stones, and now he has dementia. Nature finally threw something at him that he has no hope of recovering from. I can’t help but think that a lot of it could have been delayed, or even avoided, if he simply ate more vegetables, drank water instead of sugary drinks, and exercised regularly. It all seems so simple, I really do wonder why more people aren’t doing it.