It Happens

When I came home at noon today,  grocery bags in hand,  I found Bo and Jon sitting at the kitchen table with Ronnie,  our Hospice nurse.

“Is that MY NANCY?” I hear Bo ask loudly.

“Sure is,”  Ronnie responded.  “Here she comes.”

I put my arms around him from the back of his chair, and he wrapped his around mine, in a good mood and  so much more animated than usual.  Obviously the three of them had been laughing about something when I came in.

Bo tried hard to tell me something that didn’t really make sense, but he was communicating.

“Good day,”  Ronnie said.  “I haven’t seen him this good in a long time.”  Jon and I looked at one another and smiled.

How do you explain what’s happening in Bo’s Alzheimer’s-riddled mind?  He was down,  so far down that we thought it was ending,  and now he’s better than he has been  in a long time.  In fact, Jon took him out for Five Guys hamburgers at lunch yesterday, then to the ice cream store for dessert.  He has asked for food and told us he needs to use the bathroom.  How long has it been since that happened?

Then I asked Bo,  “How are you feeling today?”

“Not so good,” he said.

“Really?  What’s wrong?”

He shrugged his shoulders,  “Shit happens.”

The three of us looked at one another and  laughed out loud.  Where did that come from?

Later, I walked Ronnie out to her car.  “It’s the high’s and low’s of the disease,” she said. “That’s Alzheimer’s. “