Living with dementia

[bill_schubert]

Dogs have something that people have.  It is called sundowners (and lots of more scientific stuff but that is the most descriptive).   Zoe has sundowners.  She is also mostly deaf and about half blind and has what we think is Cushings disease.  And, of course, osteoarthritis.  

We still walk a couple or three times a day.  Around the block.  Fifteen or so minutes.  Or over to get the mail to throw it away.  Something to get her nose out and about.  It still works well.  And she loves to eat.  In one end and out the other.  That is the final thing.  As long as she can eat and process the food and go for walks we're OK.

But her dementia manifests itself as walking around the house panting.  It seems a little anxious and really is just that she does not know what else she is supposed to do but she should be doing something.  She follows me room to room much more than ever and just lies near me.  I give her a supplement that is supposed to calm her.  It would probably be better if Dana took it.  The placebo effect for the owner is pretty good.  

This all usually happens around the evening news time (hence the name) but today is Saturday and we started in the morning.  I gave her a trazadone fifteen minutes ago and a puzzle full of cheerios.  She's calmer now and the trazadone has not yet kicked in.  When it does she will crash for the day.  

She turns fifteen on the Ides of March and has been right next to me all that time.  We're not going to do any more tests or anything like that.  Nothing to stress her.  She's had her shots this year so nothing until next January.  As steady as we can drive the ship from here on out.

Meanwhile, major trauma at the Tennis center.  The pickleball vs tennis players tension has kicked off in writing now.  One of our group inadvertently walked across a court where there were tennis players.  The way the courts are set up the ones they assign us are all the way in the back and we have to walk across other courts to get out.  The tennis players say we should walk across other pickleball courts rather than disturb them.  The tennis players really do act entitled and arrogant and are not at all nice about it.  There are twice as many or more pickleball players than tennis and the tennis players play 'serious tennis' in leagues.  

The pro sent out a message saying he would cancel our reservations if this didn't stop happening.  I called him on it.  He was applying all transgressions by all pickleball players ever to this one incident and really blowing it out of proportion.  His was a knee jerk reaction to being lambasted by entitled women tennis players who could have just as easily kindly asked the pb player to not cross their court.  

Pickleball will create more separate courts and these tennis courts will one day be underfunded as a result.  I have a little bit of empathy having played tennis for maybe 50 years.  

I'm not going to suggest to the pro but definitely feel like he should maybe not throw gas on that fire quite yet.  But I don't envy his position.  The morning tennis women are intimidating.

Comments

[maisydaisy]

If only our fur babies lives were not so short.

[zoefruitcake]

Poor Zoe
So when you say walk across the court do you mean across the middle during a game? Or around the side?

[bill_schubert]

Around the side. Never across. And, in this case, not even while they were playing.

[zoefruitcake]

Is there another way for them to reach where they are playing? It is all sounding rather petty

[bill_schubert]

It is a weird set up. The back four courts (equaling eight pb courts) can only access the world by going through one of two other courts. The PB players are always on those courts so it is kind of set up for tension. Which would not matter if everyone was just nice about it. No one is playing for any kind of championship. None of us are pros apt to lose money if they are disturbed. So it is kind of petty.

Small people. Small lives.

[zoefruitcake]

Yeah :0(