Monday, July 20, 2009

An update on Adrian

Adrian continues to bring both joys and tribulations to our lives. He can be very happy, joking around and enjoying life. But he can also explode at any minute and grab your arm and try to bite you.

The photographs show Anne, Adrian and I on our late May, early June holiday in Rhode Island. The smile on his face as we took a harbour cruise around Newport was a joy to behold. (The picture taker was a retiree from our home town, Stoke-on-Trent in England. Its a small world.)

During that trip Adrian's fear of heights grew larger. We are hoping to speak to his psychiatrist soon about this.

Every Saturday, we pick Adrian up at his group home at 10 00 am and take him with us for the day, returning him at 7 00 pm. And every Saturday we sign for his 4 00 pm pill that helps control his depression and his behavioural outbursts. A side effect of his medication is putting on weight. He is on a diet to contol his type 2 diabetes, but it appears to do little with his weight gain. Another topic for the psychiatrist.

On Saturday we visited Nathan, Christine (ma belle fille), and Justin and Gabrielle, our grandchildren. It was Christine's 40th birthday. As is our custom when visiting with Adrian, we stayed for only about 30 minutes. This way we reduce the likelyhood of a behavioural episode to a minimum. We do not want the grandchildren to see Adrian in a rage.

August 21st is, apparently, National Senior Citizens Day in the USA. I submitted version 2 of an article entitled "Retirement: A time for new challenges" to Etsy and its Storque blog. This may be published for that day. In it I discuss basket-making as a therapy that helps in the stresses of life associated with Adrian. I hope it is published.





No comments:

Post a Comment