My last post was in August 2024, and I’m sorry to say that I haven’t had much time to do anything for a year. My wife was diagnosed with dementia June 2024, and I have been her care giver, so not a lot of time for anything else.
I got a notice today that the domain for this blog needed renewing, so I had to decide quickly whether to let it go or continue.. I decided to continue because by now I have gotten some help to come in to take care of my wife a couple days a week, and so now I’ve been able to do some hobby things I couldn’t really do for the last year.
This blog has revolved around my varied interests, basically whatever I’m working on, and so I think I can continue to do that, plus possibly share some thoughts about what’s involved with caring for a loved one with dementia.
I’ve learned a lot in the last year about care giving, and can say, life ranges from easy, to hard, to very hard. I have learned things that you should do, and come up with a few things of my own that can be done to make things easier, and I’ll try to share that with the caution saying I’m no expert.
For hobby time, I’ve gotten back in to music, since I can do this while my wife is napping or with an aide. I tried to go back to electronics… that’s harder to do, I can find a few minutes here and there to design, but building and debugging take too much attention.
I can say I have used my technology skills to come up with a few things to make things safer for her, and easier for me. Mostly that involved morphing my home automation system (Openhab) into being an aid for myself and aides along the lines of monitoring, alarming, and reminding things related to dementia care giving.
Stefanos's Blog 