Living Life

For us, summer is the time when we are refugees from our Arizona home, driven away by hotter temperatures than we want to endure. We live 24/7 in our RV, finding space to do most of the things we do at home, but not nearly as comfortably. All of our books have been written at least partially, while we lived in our RV. However, we don’t spend much of our time or efforts thinking about what we don’t have, for summer is also full of treats for us and those are what we try to focus on.

Summer is when we see more of our kids, grandkids and great-grandkids. What with a reunion and smaller family get-togethers, meeting up with old friends, spending time on the family farm and getting to meet my newest great grand baby, 3 month old Shilo (a real beauty already!) we've been more focused on family and friends this summer.

We took a weekend to visit my brother's family...and to drop in on my nephew Tom's dementia support group. His wife has LBD, and they've been dealing with it for several years. He's a very quiet man, but he's learned to use his group. He shared his experiences and ideas and nodded in camaraderie with others as they shared theirs. "This group has been such a great help to me," he told us, and the group. "It keeps me from feeling so alone." We hear that a lot, but it was especially wonderful hearing it from family, and from this usually so reticent man. One of the topics under discussion was respite time. We were impressed at how they all seemed to understand how important that is and how each of them had developed ways to have some.

Visiting support groups is usually a very important part of our lives...for a different reason than Tom's. We are not living with LBD; but we are listeners. It is true that we always try to share information when we visit a group, but we also listen. We listen, and hear about issues and joys, concerns and successes, questions and answers about what has worked and what hasn't. It is where we get most of our ideas and information for our blogs and books, and to pass on to other groups. But we are really in vacation mode this year and Tom's is the only group we've visited.

Summer is mostly camping time for us. It’s when we live in RV parks and visit with other campers. Most of them have connections with people with PD or dementia, but we don’t talk about it a lot. After all, for most of these people, this is also vacation time. Unlike us, they aren’t living in their RV 24/7. They are more into having fun than into learning about illness. And so it becomes vacation time for us too. We visit, play cards and pick blackberries. I made blackberry jam, blackberry shortcake, blackberries and cereal, blackberries and… Ugh, I’m sick of blackberries.

Anyone who's read our On the Road with the Whitworths book knows how frugal we both are. The local casino's Senior Monday Buffet ($3.95 each!) is just up our alley. Then we get to play the slots with the $10 they give us, hoping that we’ll get hooked and play a lot more. Last time, I came home with $23. Jim left his 3 cents on the machine. In the same frugal spirit, we toured a park-wide garage sale and came home with a couple of finds. There were other things I liked but living in an RV makes us pretty choosy…no room for things we can’t use right now. And we did some sightseeing although we’ve already toured this area and so it was more something to do than exploration. Again, living in a small space makes getting out (even in the smaller space of the car!) pretty attractive.

 And so this blog is not really about LBD. But it is about living life and making the most of it. You have to do that no matter what else is going on. Like Tom's group members,find some time to live your own life and find the positives even with LBD causing its usual havoc.

For a fun read about the first year we RVed and taught about LBD,:
On the Road with the Whitworths.

For information about Lewy body disorders, read our books:
A Caregivers’ Guide to Lewy Body Dementia
Managing Cognitive Issues in Parkinson's and Lewy Body Dementia

Helen and James Whitworth are not doctors. As informed caregivers, they share the information here foreducational purposes only. It should never be used instead of a physician's advice.