Thankful my Boxer has adjusted

Blu turns 6 in a few weeks. She sure has gone through a lot in that time. She grew up with Tony having Dementia. Her and I learned what worked and what didn't work along the way. His good days and his bad. What frustrated him the most. She had a sense about her that when he was having a really hard day, she would lay her head on his lap and let him pet her, which seemed to really calm himm down. He loved her very much. When he got to the point he was unsteady on his feet, she would watch him closely. He developed dizzy spells, which the drs. could never figure out why. They ran every test imaginable on him and still couldn't figure out the dizzy spells. If he fell she would come barking at me. If he was outside working in the yard, she would run from window to window throughout the whole house to keep up with him. She would do the same thing if he fell outside, come running to me barking. I always turned the sound off on the T.V. when he went outside, as that way I could hear him yelling if he fell. The night we took him to the ER he told her goodbye. He had never done that before. He could barely walk out to the car. He was hallucinating, had delusions, didn't know who he himself was. His daughter took him. As I was walking back to the house I could see and hear Blu howling and she had not ever howled while awake, only in her sleep. Tony was in the hospital a month when they discovered he had advance stage 3 esophageal cancer. At that point he was barely talking, not opening his eyes , not eating, still didnt know who he himself was. I would go to visit and since he was at the hospital I had worked at for 18 years, I would go visit all my old work buddies and then drop back by to say goodnight. I went back to say good night and he acted like I hadn't even been in there for the last 2 hours with him. he thought I was just getting there. He was in the hospital for 3 months, they moved him to a nursing home but Tony had always made me promise, please bring him home to die. We had hospice bring all the equipment and bed on a Saturday morning March 21st and the Hospital transferred him home Saturday afternoon around 4 p.m. Hospice nurse stayed to instruct me on meds. He was DNR and was already off food and water. I lowered the bed so Blu could visit with him. She kept licking his hand and whined a little bit and then crawled under the hospice bed. I remember holding Tony's hand telling him he was home and he squeezed my hand and then I told him he could let go anytime that Blu and I would stick together, we would be alright and he squeezed my hand again. She just watched every move I made. We fell asleep around 10:30 p.m. and I woke up at 12:38 a.m. and he was gone. I lowered the bed so Blu could say goodbye. She sat at the edge of the bed and whined. After about 10 minutes she turned and went and jumped in her recliner and fell asleep. Our watch was over. Tonys son was anxious to sell the house so Blu and I were left with just a few weeks to figure out what to do. My daughter and her fiancé told us we could come live with them. So since his daughter was going to take us to Arkansas we really couldn't bring much with us. Blu lost her buddy, the home she grew up in and had to move to an unfamiliar place all with in a few weeks time. It took her a few months of grieving and adjusting but she has finally adjusted to her new surroundings. Well I should say the room she stays in most the time. She is quite over protective of me and her territory (The room) I am the only thing she has left that is familiar to her.Seeing that goofy face and that little tongue sticking out reminds me that she’s okay. She’s happy. And she’s still Blu. ❤️🐾

From Sun Up to Sun Down

From 2020 to 2026, I was basically Chief Cook and Bottle Washer. I was responsible for everything from high level decisions to small chores. Tony had Dementia. The last few years, was when it really took its toll. Forgetting how to work the t.v. remote really hit him hard. I had to stop what I was doing to go change the channel for him. He would write checks and tear them in half and get them ready to mail. I never got an answer to why he did that. He always had a pre-packaged breakfast bowl every morning. I had to unplug the microwave so I could be there as it got to where he would forget to put the bowl in the microwave but still run it for the 4 minutes like the bowl was in there but he was standing right there with bowl in his hand. Living the life of a caretaker for those years, when it came to an end it felt like when I retired from the hospital. What do I do now? I was used to getting up at 5 am and constantly on the go until around 9 pm. For the first time in over 25 years I was by myself. The stress of him going into the hospital for almost 3 months was hard for me to handle. Other people were taking care of him. I would go visit and sometimes he actually knew who I was. I didn't sleep much, maybe a few hours a night. Very thankful for my older and younger sister checking up on me and my daughter Beth, would text me several times a day. I love them more than my coffee and trust me. I love my coffee from Sun Up to Sun Down. >