Plateaus and Valleys

Dad seems to plateau--stay the same--for a long time, then he takes a sudden downhill turn.  He is in a downhill phase right now.

For a while now, Dad has occasionally started to undress in the family room when he thought we were taking too long to put him to bed.  Tonight for the first time Dad undressed BEFORE dinner.  He took off his suspenders and pants, unbuttoned his shirt, and removed it.  He left his clothes in a pile in Mama's chair.  Then he came to the table wearing only his undershirt, diaper, and leg wraps with his plastic pants around his knees.  I guess it was a good thing he shuffles because he couldn't have walked without tripping on his plastic pants.

I re-dressed him and let him come back to the table.  I had already put the salads on the table, so he started eating on his before dinner was ready. Now for as long as I can remember, Dad has liked bacon bits (imitation) on his salad.  Tonight, he decided that they were too hard to chew and spit them out.  He left them in a nasty pile on the table next to his salad bowl. 

Dad likes to wash his food down with milk or tea.  Because of his fluid retention problems and his chronic congestive heart failure, we have to limit the amount he drinks.  Tonight, before he even started eating his food, he picked up his milk glass and drained most of it before I could stop him.  Then, since he didn't have much milk, he had a harder time eating his dinner.

He used his fingers to eat almost everything tonight, including salad and English peas.  The only piece of silverware he consistantly used tonight was his spoon for his pudding. I guess as long as it is just family, it doesn't really matter.  At least he is faster eating with his fingers instead of trying to use a fork and carrying an empty fork to his mouth.