My friend has gotten a lot more active of late. We live in a regional town and his house is about 20 mins walk from the main street and his favourite cafe. We now have a GPS watch which is my back up for when his phone goes flat or he forgets to put his phone in his pocket.
His favourite Cafe is owned by an Italian family and in the evenings it is an Italian Restaurant. They love him and are so kind to him when he's there which is why he keeps going back, sometimes 3 times in one day. His short-term memory is poor and he'll often forget that he was there an hour earlier. But the beauty of a small town is that he is for the most part in a protective bubble and 5 days a week I'm never too far away.
There's also another attraction to this business, one of his current stories is that I own the cafe and he's coming to see me. In reality I work at a resort 1 kilometre from the cafe but no amount of reminding him where I work has stuck.
Being active and walking is fabulous for his brain and his mental health. But I will admit when the increased activity first started a couple of months ago it stressed me out. I'm learning to loosen the reigns and let things flow. I'm never far away if he gets a bit lost and I keep an eye on where he is via his phone and the watch. I know the trigger points of where he starts to get lost, and I phone him as soon as I realise he's at that point.
One day when the era of walking kicked off, I was half an hour away and noticed he'd walked into town, I called him and he'd said he was going home. I checked in a few times and after noticing he'd taken a wrong turn out of the dog park, on the way home, I proceeded to spend 20 mins on the phone with him, talking him home.
We're working on keeping him independent for as long as we can and as long as he doesn't go looking for me in the middle of the night, we're ok.
Which leads me to time, he has no concept of it. This evening after I left work, I picked him up from one of his walks. I had some jobs to do at his house and decided to stay until it got dark as there was less chance of him going for his 3rd walk of the day if the sun was down.
I looked out the window and commented that the sun was going down, his response was " it’s a bit unnatural, isn’t it?" I questioned what he meant, and he asked me what the time was "it's evening 5.30pm. His response " oh I thought it was mid-morning"
20 mins later he said "I might go for a walk" I replied "no it's getting late" he responded " it's only morning isn't it? " I responded to him and said he was shifting time!
Needless to say I held my breath as I left and I've been checking that he's phone and watch are both saying he's home ever since.
Winter is finally descending on us, and his wings will be clipped for a while. But that then creates the challenge of how to keep his brain active and stop him going stir crazy through the winter months. I have some plans in place and we'll pivot as we need to.
Lib x
Photo by Jérémie Crausaz on Unsplash
