Enexpected

You plan your life and live it and then one day you reach the age where you can see retirement over the hill. You think how nice it would be to rent an RV and travel a bit. Or take a cruise to nowhere. And then something happens to change your plans.

T. has been complaining of his memory getting bad and had mentioned it to his doctor at the VA. Doctor sloughed it off as normal ageing. Every body's memory gets worse and they get older, he said. Still, after complaining and getting nowhere - I went along on one of T.'s doctor visits. I expressed how much the memory problem worried us both and the doctor gave a sort of standard test right in the office. He told T. Draw a clock. Put the numbers where they belong. Draw the hands at 10 to 5. T. couldn't follow the directions. The doctor referred us to a psychologist at the local VA. She was very pleasant and after her battery of tests, she talked to both of us in her office. She had found some areas that concerned her. T. was losing some of the skills in areas of the brain that enable a person to put things together in a limited amount of time. Or figure out how to combine simple irregular shapes to resemble a square or a triangle. She referred us to the VA in Gainesville but cautioned us that it could take some while to get an appointment because there had been personnel turnover and they were backed up.

We went home to wait it out. Time passed and Christmas and New Years came and went. Still no Gainesville notice of appointment. T. had to go to the eye clinic - which he did by himself. He lost the car after the visit ended and had to have the guard drive him around until he spotted the Saturn in the lot. He drove home with his eyes blurred. A couple of days after that he complained that his eye was burning. I looked and the left lid was swollen up. He said he hadn't rubbed it - all the while he stood there rubbing the lid. It hurt and swelled nearly closed. My son in law drove T. to the VA to see his primary doctor for his regularly scheduled visit and I think that's when the doctor realized that something was indeed wrong with his memory. As it was described to me, T. stood in the waiting room, explaining that he was there to see his Dr - Dr Ngo, and all the while he was speaking to the gentleman but didn't recognize him. Because my son-in-law pastors at a local church and the doctor's nurse-receptionist attends that church, she was able to tell the doctor that he could rely on Richard's veracity and that what the family was experiencing wasn't just in their imagination. There really was a problem. Dr. Ngo gave T. some antibiotic salve for his eye and said he wanted to see him back if the swelling continued. The salve worked.

A week later, I received a phone call from the social worker at the Gainesville VA. She said they had been contacted by our VA and had scheduled an appointment. She explained how the visit would go and told me that the neuro-psychologist would speak with T. and me and then after that, she and I would go to another office and T. would go through testing with the doctor. They had scheduled out a block of 3 hours for the whole visit. The appointment was set for 2 days before T.'s birthday.

Came the day of the VA visit, I drove to Gainesville. T. said he didn't know the way; didn't think he could find the VA - it had been so long since he had driven there. We met one of our daughters at the hospital and while T. was testing, she and I sat in the social worker's office and spoke of how things might change and of what steps we needed to start taking to prepare. She gave us a lot of good resources for caregivers and set up a medical power of attorney for T. to sign once she found out that he hadn't signed anything detailing how he might want to be treated in the event of a major illness. She said she believed he could sign it and understand it but if we waited too long, he might not be able to make his wishes known and without a power of attorney, nobody else could act in his stead.

When T. and the doctor finally came down from testing, they sat in the social worker's office and the doctor got right to the diagnosis. She didn't pull any punches telling us that she found T. to have mild to moderate Dementia/Alzheimer's. She was straight-forward and matter-of-fact in her diagnosis and for that, I was strangely grateful. She and the social worker gave us business cards and she recommended another medication that may be of help in holding the memory loss at a stable point - she said to see about getting Dr. Ngo to prescribe it. He hasn't yet. I will be calling him back to see if he has done anything about setting things up so that T. can start on this medication along with the one he is currently taking. The social worker explained things to T. and he initialed then signed off on the power of attorney.

We had lunch after the doctor visit. Sarah paid for Olive Garden and we had a lovely meal there. After we were done in Gainesville, I drove back home marvelling at how pretty the countryside was. I have always liked to drive through scenic landscapes.

I went to work the next day and thought I'd be fine but cried every time I talked with anyone about the diagnosis. I was just an overflowing bucket of tears - talking to Sarah. Talking to Susan. Talking to my boss. Talking to some of the secretaries. I don't know how I made it through that day. Susan called my brother and sister for me. I told her I just couldn't do it right then, that I knew I'd break down. She offered to make the calls and has been a real rock of support.

Sarah and Rich and their two boys helped us celebrate T.'s 74th birthday on the Friday. I took everyone to Applebees and in the course of the meal I may have compared the lunch in Gainesville and T. said he didn't recall going to lunch at Olive Garden. I was a little upset but Sarah took it in stride - she said it had been a long day for him and he was tired in the afternoon, so that may be part of the reason he didn't recall the event.

My brother and sister are major support givers - I know I can call on them for a sympathetic ear and a virtual hug in time of stress.

For right now, things are going pretty well. I'm still working and T. isn't driving by himself. We just celebrated our 36th anniversary and there's a quarter sheetcake on the dining table waiting for grandchildren to take another slice.

We still laugh together at the same things. I showed T. the bruised spots on my left arm where my purse slid down - I asked him did he get marks like that from banging into stuff. He said he did and proceeded to point to brown spot after brown spot - in a kind of "I dare you to disagree" manner.

I told him, "Those aren't bruises - they're age spots." He said, "They're what?" I said, "They're age spots. You know, they're those marks that - when you connect them -they say you're just so dad-blamed old!"

He ducked his head, but I saw the grin before he hid his face.