Cycles

The new 'real' seems to be all about cycles. He cycles through not sleeping, sometimes for days, which causes a worsening of his symptoms.  He has more delusions, a harder time understanding what people are saying, a harder time keeping track of time and space.   In this phase of the cycle, we can expect a reversion to old conversations, especially ones regarding old obsessions.

"I need to go to the bank."

"Ok... how much do you need to take out."

"$300"

"For what?'

"To get new tires."

"But you just got new tires 6 months ago and they only have 30k miles on them [the tires in question are 85k tires."

"I know."

"So why do you need new tires?"

"I just do."

This particular conversation happens about every 2 weeks.  Additionally, every time we get into the car when he is in this phase, he says we need to go to Brownsville [30 miles away] for gas, no matter how much gas we actually have. When asked why, he says it is cheaper there, even though we have shown him it is more expensive there.  There are several of these 'subroutine' type obsessions that he pulls out when he is tired.

Once he reaches a certain point of exhaustion, he will sleep for an extended amount of time and there is NO keeping him awake.  I have found that it actually makes it all worse, so I tend to let him do it, even if he is sleeping around the clock.

Once he is rested, he is more alert, understands what is going on better, is able to follow new things like the pool exercise class instructions.  He is able to participate in various activities but still only with a lot of supervision and assistance. I made the mistake of thinking that because he was in one of his 'aware' phases, it would be no problem for him to use the riding mower. This was a mistake in judgement on my part.  He did a bit of damage because he could not figure out the brake and acceleration.  Could not remember how to engage the blades or to get in and out of reverse. It took several rounds of explanations before he could get it going safely but even then he was unable to judge distance to objects and several times ran over things that he shouldn't.  I did notice that towards the end of the 20 minutes of mowing he was a little more alert and 'with it'.  I'm going to explore that aspect as I have noticed the phenomenon more than once... the more active he is, the easier it seems for him.  The downside to that is that every time we have an action packed day, the next day, he is worse.  It is almost like it takes some time to get his brain revving, but once it is, it can't stop and gets overwhelmed.  I think this is going to be a hard balance to find and maintain, if we are able to at all.