I do not leave Josh alone. When I go out, I have a caregiver for Josh. It is a safety issue as Josh has no working memory. He does not know what he does from moment to moment. He literally lives in the moment. His memory of an event probably lasts no more than 10 minutes. He knows what he is doing when he is doing it, but the event (whatever he is doing -- i.e., playing Xbox, watching a movie, being on the computer, etc.) does not gel in his brain due to his injury. Josh will watch a Padre game on television or go to a Chargers game and literally have no recollection of seeing the game within 15 minutes of it happening. It is very strange. It is all due to the anoxic brain injury. It is very sad and hard to deal with.
This morning Josh came to my bedroom at 6 a.m. and in his slurry voice told me he was getting the newspaper. I heard the front door open. After several minutes Josh did not return with the paper as usual. I jumped out of bed and looked for Josh. There was no sign of him any where. I shouted his name and heard him from afar. Josh had opened the gate to our gated community and walked down the street to the kiosks that have free newspapers such as The Rancho Santa News. This was the first time that Josh had ever left our house and wandered off. "Oh no!!", I thought....a new challenge. I told Josh to never leave the gate as he could have easily been locked out and I could have still been sleeping. Josh immediately started screaming, "Send me back to college, you bit**!!!"
It is very difficult to reason with Josh when he is agitated.
What a way to wake up !!! It is hard to always speak in the correct tone of voice and be loving & caring. Sometimes you just want to scream at the top of your lungs!! "Why me ??!!!???" No words can describe the pain a mother feels for her brain-injured son. It is like a death every single day. You think of what your son was like when he was a child -- smart, intelligent, ahead of his time, funny....
Now he is on social security disability and Medicare, has bathroom accidents, slurs his speech, walks with a gait, has balance issues and is a prisoner of the past. ("Mom, is Michael Jackson dead ? "Where is Mary?" (my mother, his grandmother who died years ago....); "Where are Ruffy and Daisy?" (our dogs who died years ago...) "Where is John Lennon?" "Where is Junior Seau?"
AD INFINITUM How sad is that !?!? Nobody understands what you are going through. All of your friends tell you, "You should be doing this and that....blah, blah, blah......" "You need to do this and that....blah, blah, blah....." THEY DON'T GET IT !!!!
PERSEVERATION sucks. This is when they do or say the same thing over and over and over again until you want to lay down and die !!!!
I am trying to stay healthy so I can continue to care for Josh. I will be 63 this month, not exactly a spring chicken. haha ! I tried putting Josh at the Howard House on the weekends so I could have some free time but I did not feel comfortable about the situation. I dropped him off on a Thursday and picked him up on Monday. He was in the exact same clothes as when I dropped him off, he reeked of body odor and was filthy... When I arrived, he was at the computer playing solitaire. He said, "Mom, get me out of here !" All of the other patients of the facility were sitting in their wheelchairs, off to one side of the room.... How depressing is that !!! No interaction. SAD !!!!
I am trying to make the most of my free time. Music is a big part of my life. It soothes the soul !
That's all for now...... 
Josh, Me and Natalie
Josh, Me and Natalie
Josh looks pretty darn good, doesn't he ?
