June 6, 2024, was just another day in the Frechette household—or was it? That day, we had Elise instead of Vivian as our care companion. Both are great at working with Kimberly, but for some reason, Kimberly wanted to redo the polish on her fingernails. So, they quickly traveled to the city park and then headed to a department store to purchase fingernail remover, nail polish, and a clear coating. While there, Kimberly sees this stuffed doggie and wants it, so they also purchase it.
When they returned to the house, they worked on her fingernails outside. Once they were done, they came inside, and she showed them to me and said, “Don’t they look pretty?”
Then, she quickly sat in her perch (corner chair) and started hugging her stuffed doggie, saying, “I love my puppy.” She must have sat there hugging it for at least two-plus hours.
This was when I realized that while my wife Kimberly A Frechette, battling Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia Stage 2, struggles to hold on as a mature woman by looking pretty with her newly painted fingernails, once she started hugging the soft doggie, the childlike nature became very striking and evident.
Her world is a delicate balance as her mind is trapped in a perpetual loop, oscillating between a child’s innocence and an adult’s awareness. The changes are happening right in front of me, and there is nothing that I can do about them—nothing but let them run their course!
