Big Test Today

MADISON, ALABAMA

8/28/25

Today was my first big official test to see if I have a working brain and what level it is working at or something like that. We went through several hard questions like what day of the week is it. The OFM naturally replied he did not know since the day of the week made no difference in his lifestyle so he ignored them. That is likely not the answer they wanted to hear. But if you don't want or need to know why bother  about  it I wondered. Several other questions did not really seem to apply to full time RV style folks. Maybe that is why full timers are so special eh!

The earlier therapy session was even more questionable. The therapist had us tossing the equivalent of a nice beach ball back and forth between us. I finally convinced him that was too easy and we should do it with our eyes closed when receiving the ball. He did not think that was possible but I talked him into doing it. So I closed my eyes and removed my glasses and he tossed the ball to me and I caught it and threw it back to him with my eyes still closed. It hit him in the chest and he missed it. Before he quit I had him catching the ball with his eyes closed but I never got him to toss it back with closed eyes. We used to do that all the time down on Galveston Beach in Texas. Hmm I wonder if the next session will as much fun?

That is enough about my brain and supposed brain sickness called dementia that is developing in my head  Have fun and good night.

Mouse In The House

MADISON ALABAMA

8/26/25

The OFM has been getting a lot of double strike key strokes the last month. He finally decided it was his mouse had worn out.  Careful controlled testing showed that to be correct. So a new mouse was ordered a couple of days ago.  It is due in tomorrow and we will be glad to reduce the number of misspelled words per paragraph to reasonable for me.

On the healing front It was great today to find out that even though my brain illness is not curable it is possible that the treatment we are getting has a reasonable chance of giving me a 40% increase in usable life expectancy for my brain function. That translates to something like another 3-4 years over the original time frame. I will be thrilled for every extra day I can milk from the situation.

In the mean time every one try to have tooooo much fun.

Goodnight.

WELL THAT FAILED

MADISON. ALABAMA

8/24/25

The OFM managed to screw it all up yesterday evening and posting a picture resulted in sending the picture into la la la  space. I will have to get another try when I can.  This brain failure stuff is sure getting in the way of the good life. All you sane folks have fun.

COMPUTER LESSONS

MADISON, ALABAMA

8/23/25

The good news tonight is the OFM's son got by today and we had picture goes into the blog writing lessons. Now please do not get too excited since the OFM has to get comfortable putting the picture into the blog. However tomorrow morning our plan is to start practicing doing picture insertions and see how it goes. Monday morning is go get new eye exams and order new trifocals for the OFM. With some luck tomorrow tomorrow night just might put the first new pic in a long time into the blog. Wish me luck.

SUDOKU

MADISON, ALABAMA

08/22/25

Well here we are with another few days under our belts. The OFM has spend a good bit of the last few days having short mild migraine attacks and trying to learn a game called SUDOKU. Supposedly it is a wonderful numbers game that will make my mental abilities score much better in a couple of weeks. It seems I have an EVALUATION coming up. What evaluation are they talking about? Anyway All I have to do is stop the auto pay from my bank and we will find out answers I bet.

Back to the good things. My son got us an eye exam appointment for next week. My eye sight has really deteriorated in the last month or so. Looks like new glasses are on the schedule soon. They will be welcomed for sure.

The coloring book coloring class is now on the schedule for first week of September. So the OFM needs to get busy and plan a class for the level of abilities of the folks i the class. There are a few folks here that will probably exceed the OFM abilities but we hope to get more folks to doing something besides stare at televisions. 

That is about it for this entry. Keep active and have tooooo much fun. 

PHOTO NEWS

MADISON, ALABAMA

8/19/25

Well I have an appointment in a week or three for my son to come over and help me start being able to put pics on the blog again. It would be nice to finally get a lot of the move off the road finished.  Of course I will not have all the travel pics anymore but at least  I might get some good grand kid pictures for all the relatives to see on the blog. So everyone have a great week and be nice to everyone you meet.

NOTHING SPECIAL HAPPENING

 MADISON, ALABAMA

8/18/25

Things are going pretty smooth. The facilities are getting several new folks in and the big revamp of the inside is in full swing now.  The OFM is still getting his walks and the brain therapy lady is working really strongly on trying to slow down my memory loss speed.  I am not fixable but we think that we can significantly slow down the abilities loss speed.  So I have a lot of homework every day to  keep up my end of the fight. Our best guess is I may have a decent 7-8 more years if I keep up the "up keep" as needed. You count on me leading that effort.

In the mean time I have the colored pencil coloring class coming up right after Labor Day that I am also prepping for.  We have about ten folks considering coming to it. We will see.

That is about it, I hope every one else is doing well at trying to have tooooo much fun.

UNREAL EVENT

MADISON, ALABAMA

8/15/25

Today I saw an amazing display of playing catch with a large exercise ball. One person was the exercise instructor leading the morning effort. The other person was an older lady resident in her early 80s I think. . She had a special feature, she is totally BLIND.  They were standing about 15 feet apart. The instructor tossed the ball to bounce in between them on its way to her.  She would catch the ball as the instructor would move laterally to a new spot and make a mouth noise like a whistle.  The lady would bounce the ball to him to catch and return. This went on for about ten minutes with the lady always catching the ball and accurately returning it to the instructor. The OFM stood there in awe of the event. She never missed the catch or throw angle back to the instructor. Incredibly amazing to the OFM.

NICE BIRTHDAY

MADISON, ALABAMA 

8/13/25

Hello everyone. It has been a bit of busy day cleaning, sorting and other things like that with nothing special happening.  We have been taking our therapy treatments as prescribed for both body and mind. Some progress on the body but the mind is sliding a bit.  According to the therapy folks, the OFM is doing well? Anyway the OFM turned 79 and our son and his wife and the the grandkids along with the OFM's ex wife and her current wonderful husband went out for a nice birthday supper together. It was a wonderful evening.

Tomorrow will be more therapy and healing.  It is a slow road this healing stuff. Everyone have fun and we will see you later. 

NEW DIAGNOSIS

MADISON, ALABAMA

8/10/25

It was a very interesting day today.  Mentions of my mental state brought in a lot of discussion.  For the moment it is thought (no doctor yet) but medical support folks were in on the discussions. The general consensus was that the OFM is in an early stage of  Dementia. This is the first time anyone has mentioned that illness.  The OFM went right to work learning what it means etc. Turns out he could not quite get a hand on all of it but he learned a lot about it. Yep it is serious. My doctor appointment is still over a month away. Just thought I would let everyone know about this surprise and then continue my style of living until a real doc gets a hold on it. Ya'll have fun. I intend to.

ART SHOW

 MADISON, ALABAMA

8/9/2025

Howdy from HOT north Alabama.  Well we only had one event worth reporting today.  The OFM hangs latest art efforts on the hall side of his door to give everyone a good laugh as they walk by.  Today the recreation director of this place stopped and looked at the coloring hanging on the door and the rest of the efforts in a ring binder I keep in my desk.

She decided she wants to have a public showing of some of my "art" for the folks in this operation and anybody else that walks in a good laugh. So now it looks like the OFM will become infamous all over the building soon.  I am already in-famous for all the walking I get out and do every day while they all tell their doctors all sorts of excuses for sitting in their room watching TV all day and night. So lean back and relax. I think the OFM has all the bad luck tucked in his closet for now. Good night.

NEW WALKING AREA

Madison, Alabama

8/8/2025

Well we had a great day in the dining room today.  The cooks outdid themselves on all three meals. The OFM ate a full plateful at each sitting. They really have their act together on the cole slaw. It is scrumptious. Then in midafternoon they had what they called Farmers Market put on by staff and volunteers. Lots of different fruits were available. The OFM had a large cup or watermelon, grapes. and three more good fruits for the afternoon snack. OINK 0INK. 

For good measure the OFM got clearance to use the back yard for walking. It is the area about a hundred feet wide by the long length of the facility  with a mowed deep swale down the middle. It is a mown maintained area where the OFM can walk in slightly rougher terrain with sloped areas to add exercise to the walking. It worked out perfect .  That adds to the concrete walkway around the building that we use now.  Wet or dry we have a good walking surface now.

That is it for tonight. Have some fun whever you are.

WALKING AND FLYING

MADISON, ALABAMA

8/7/2025

Things are going fairly well. I have been using my walking cane outside when walking and utilizing rougher ground to give me more challenging get along.  Today I discussed moving my walking over onto the the sloped grassy area that has some very moderate unevenness to it. He looked it over and agreed I am ready for it if I keep the walking stick at the ready. I agreed with him that I still can use the stick now and then since I still flop a bit now and then. So we have another small bit of progress.

The dental check up went well yesterday. The dentist gave me an A on my tooth care but an A+ needs a few changes that I and my daughter in law are making to my teeth cleaning equipment. A report on my opinion about it all will be in about three months of now or when I think something is worth mentioning..

A neat event happened this morning. While walking, one of those four winged insects with the  long round body we called mosquito catcher back in my childhood days flew next to my side burn area for a couple of minutes. I could actually feel the breeze from its wings on my ears. That was a neat experience.

I do not know why for sure but now days I bruise very easily. Yesterday my right fore arm ended up with several long mild bruises on it. Old age maybe? The two physical therapists working with me these days are really making a big difference (improvements) in my getting around but I do my homework each day.

Internet is very iffy around this place so do not worry if I miss a day or two of blogging.  It is likely my short term memory or the internet as the trouble.

Have some fun and get outside while you still can.

The OFM.

REALITY REPORT

MADISON, ALABAMA

8/4/2025

OK folks I will continue in a sort of way as well as my mind allows. Here is my status. It took three sordid months of misadventures to get to this status.  The short story of this situation started in mid May while on my way to my usual summer time visit.  I got parked at the usual state park in the usual camp sight with no trouble.  I went for the usual walk after set up.  Then the troubles hit. I got slapped with total dis- orientation of where or why I was at wherever I was. I attempted to  flag down a vehicle to get the rangers to find me and help. And then I passed out in the road.  About a week or so later I awoke in a jail place in east Texas.  Angels from Alabama came all the way from Huntsville Alabama to get me and the rig.  It was my sons fantastic wife's parents. The short story is I had no idea what was going on but I knew they were good folks helping me. A few days later were here in the Madison area and the OFM was still totally out of it about what is happening. The wonderful angels here took great care of me while I was pretty much out of it for a few weeks. The Castle and the truck were sold and the OFM well taken care of in spite of his out of it state of being. To the current status now.

I am in an assisted living location in mid Madison and slowly regaining some of my senses. The situation is safe and comfortable. I am slowly regaining some of my memory loss but it is slow going. The food is decent and living is comfortable and safe. At times there is no coherent thoughts in my head and in the good times I can tell that I will never get all my senses back completely. But I will be trying to let every one experience this life situation through me as suggested by one of my longer term readers.

The situation is decent and comfortable but the OFM's brain does not work right all the time.  But enough folks have suggested I tell the world about it that maybe it would have some value to those who are getting old.  I will be 79 in about a week. Thanks for reading. We will see what works out to be.

NOW IS TIME

MADISON, ALABAMA

8/3/2025

The OFM and KIDDO (the OFM's son) worked for a few hours today trying to teach the OFM how to publish a blog and pictures again. Alas, the OFM no longer has enough personal memory to be doing that any more. His old age limits at 79 have caught up with him. The OFM even could not take pictures and edit them to fit into the blog again So we regretfully have to let it go and say good bye to OLD FAT MAN ADVENTURES . We have had a great time for over 20 years  traveling and reporting the great things to see and do in our country and visiting with folks. This heartfelt good bye is published thanks to the help of KIDDO.  Please keep your blogs going as long as you can so the OFM can get a chance to read how things on the road or wherever you are doing. I hope to be able to comment on others blogs for awhile yet.

GOOD BYE AND SAFE TRAVELS