I decided to take my husband out yesterday afternoon. A local winery advertised live music on their patio and they make great brick oven pizzas. It was something we had done many times before, just not recently. I didn’t understand how much the challenges of this activity might have changed for us. We took my husband’s walker, but the walk into the winery is longer than he is used to and we had to stand a few minutes to order before going outside to a table. The chairs were metal without cushions, uncomfortable and hard to move. He chose a sunny spot, I got him settled in and finally, there we were.

We enjoyed our pizza and cider as we listened to the live music. It really was a lovely way to spend a sunny afternoon. We were only able to stay about an hour before my husband was ready to come home but it was a good break for both of us, however on the drive home he became really quiet. Once we got home he napped for over an hour, didn’t want any dinner and was out of sorts the rest of the day.

What we figured out was the combination of a single glass of cider and the sun were perhaps too much for his system. He was dehydrated and exhausted after just one hour. He had mostly recovered by bedtime and slept really well. If we do this again we’ll take his transfer chair, he’ll have a soda instead of cider, and we won’t sit in the sun, no matter how tempting it is.