Listen to Your Man

One of the troubling parts of caregiving for someone with dementia is that at times they are not very adept at describing their symptoms. Dean's been complaining off and on about his mouth hurting, with a particular tooth as the culprit, for a couple of weeks.

He's also using a C-pap with oxygen at night now, so I attributed some of his mouth complaints to the very dry mouth it can give you. (This dryness is an on-going battle due to some of his meds though too.)

Especially since the pain seemed to come and go, I put off calling the dentist. But finally got him an appointment this week. It turned out to be an abscess and the dentist immediately started a root canal for it, sending us home with an antibiotic prescription to fill. We'll return tomorrow to see how it's doing.

Needless to say, I felt quite irresponsible for not getting him to the dentist sooner. He only has eight lower teeth left. I should have been more observant, listening to and taking his complaints more seriously.

What a wonderful God we have though. He not only listens to our complaints, but He is aware of our needs much better than we are. Like Dean, we often don't know exactly what our problem is, let alone how to express it. But God is the perfect Caregiver--never missing a beat when it comes to giving us appropriate care.

One of my favorite Bible verses, I Peter 5:7: "casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you."