Evelyn, no tears & wanting to go home is a very good sign.
Gwen

Almost sounds like that first day of school although it's good to hear
that she's *not* sufferering from separation anxiety.  The fact that
you two couldn't sleep during night one tells a different story ;-).
I'm happy that the transition has gone smoothly for all of you.

Darryl.

see, we told you it would be OK!  now you just need to let go a
little bit more...

i hope that you & peter can now really enjoy your freedom.
congratulations on getting your life back!

Evelyn, I'm so glad things are off to a good start for Ida. I'm
willing to bet that she will be more than fine. I think the harder
adjustment is probably going to be for you - after so many years of
intensive caregiving, it will take a while before you get used to not
having to worry about her constantly. We never had Dolli live with us,
and even so, once she went into a facility and we became confident
they were looking after her well, it was a HUGE, HUGE relief - more
than we had anticipated. I don't think any of us recognizes the stress
we are under while we are caregiving, since it slowly accumulates as
the illness progresses - its not until it begins to be lifted that we
realize the weight we were lugging (kind of like wearing lead exercise
weights around your ankles for months then taking them off....wow, you
feel like you could dance on the ceiling).

Its a sad thing, but once they reach a certain point in AD, I don't
think any place or person looks really familiar to them, and the
entire day is a random and disconnected jumble irrespective of where
they are - it must all feel like drifting through a dream. The few
flashes of clarity they may have are not enough to really grasp whats
going on. The experience must be like the few occasions in my misspent
youth where I got really drunk at big parties - where the world sort
of swirls around you, strange people come and go, there's noise and
bustle you can't really follow, you drift in and out - and you try to
figure out how you got where you are but it keeps slipping away.

As I've mentioned, when my MIL moved from assisted living to the AD
ward (two totally different facilities), she wasn't even really
congniscent of having moved - the only comment she made at the time
was that she thought they'd painted the dining room. We'd had all this
angst about moving her, and in the end, it didn't matter. Where she
was was all the same to her - if you have no short term memory, you
are living in the now, and you can never grasp where you are, how you
got there, why you are there, or what might happen next.

Its encouraging that Ida seemed to enjoy the food - perhaps she'll eat
more in her new environment. I hope she and the roommate hit it off
and become friends.
Hang in - she's going to do well.

Thinking of you!

Mary G.

Dear Evelyn,

I am so happy to hear that Ida is adjusting well---now you & Peter
rest up & really start finding yourselves again.

You can expect calls at weird hours.  The NH called John's sister at
3:00 in the morning because Deana had fallen.  No emergency, but state
law (Va) only gives them a limited amount of time to report any falls
to the family.

Always,

Char