Living with vascular dementia can be like living in a dessert. You can feel lonely, parched, weak, confused, lost and even be tempted to give up. But just when you think that you will not survive you stumble upon and oasis. There you can refuel and rest for a time before continuing your journey. Sunday we stopped by an oasis in dessert dementia.

Actually we had found the oasis on Saturday night. My husband seemed to be pain free and ready for small outing so we stopped by Dairy Queen then enjoyed our ice cream while visiting my parents down the road. That was an energy sapping outing for him so I was surprised when he was able to get up early the next morning for church. Not only did he get up but also got himself dressed and groomed. The only thing I had to do was to change the diaper. Upon arrival at church he was able to almost get out of the car by himself and walked in. That was a LOT of exertion for him and I rather expected him to tire.

But that was only the beginning. During the service he only seemed to gain strength so that by the time we were ready to leave he was anxious to take off on his own and visit with people. Only once has he ever taken off like that since we have attended this church because there is always a fear of falling. He had such a good time going from one person to the next and chatting. He even was able to get most people to understand a bit of what he was saying. I tagged a distance behind giving him his freedom and reveling in the amount of joy I could see on his face.

It didn