Like being on a see-saw.

Controversial though it might be, I would appreciate my husband being GPS tagged, not because he's getting lost, but because I haven't a clue where he is. He's oblivious to this. "You know I'm going to ...'s house", "You knew I was visiting ... on my way back", "I don't have to tell you what I'm doing or give you a time I'll be home - who do you think you are? My mother?".

Sunday morning (which I had thought would be Saturday night) was 1.30am when he returned home from his friend's house. Monday morning (which I had thought would be Sunday night) he returned at 1am. (The friend's other half must have the patience of a saint because I think I'd have kicked him out if I'd been her, also remember that our car alarm is on the same sensor as next door's door bell...). It's not that he wanders, it's not that he gets lost, but he simply loses track of the time. It doesn't mean anything to him. The only thing that matters is the things on the calendar that are relevant to him. If I need the car to get the girls somewhere - so what? It's not the end of the world if he's late. Even with things like going to visit someone, he doesn't care. Ten minutes before we're due to leave the house he'll decide to have a shower, or shave his hair off because it's too long, never mind the fact they're making dinner or tea and timing might not mean anything to him, but it might to the roast chicken in the oven that's either going to give us salmonella or be burnt to an absolute frazzle.

He's up and he's down at the moment. I think he's trying to convince himself that he's not getting worse, that infact if anything, there's nothing wrong with him at all with an "I'll show you all" kind of an attitude. What he doesn't realise is that in putting all of this effort into trying to appear like nothing's wrong, it infact has the opposite effect and ends up with him slurring words, stumbling over his own feet - he's even got a walking stick in the kitchen (lying on the floor infront of the little pantry, not that we have a big pantry - although what good it's going to do lying on the floor is beyond me...) because his knees are giving him so much pain that he's struggling to walk some days.

Last night at about 3.30am I heard an "arghhhhh" and opened my eyes in time to see him starfishing his way out of the bed. I managed to catch his arm only for him to balance himself precariously on the bedside table. I got him back into bed before he hit the floor with a thud, but ask him about it this morning and I'm making it up. I appear to be making a lot of things up at the moment. I can say something to him and a minute later it's gone. I understand this. I understand his forgetfulness, but it's not him being forgetful because it was never mentioned in the first place. The girl's names are just randomly thrown about in the hope that he gets one right and if he doesn't, it wasn't that one that he wanted to speak to anyway.

It seems that sometimes, with Dementia, the person suffering from it seems to be the least affected by it, or in our case anyway. Whilst he's on his mind wandering it doesn't bother him in the slightest. It's when he's here with us, that it causes frustration and annoyance for him - and whilst I want him here with us, sometimes I wonder if it's kinder to him to be in that happy place. The sad thing about that is that we won't be there with him. The upsetting thing is, he seems to be going to his happy place just a little bit more often than he used to be.