Late yesterday afternoon we returned from a trip to see Jesse in Memphis and Dorothy Hinely in Jonesboro. In the car I reminded Kate that she had a PEO meeting tomorrow morning. As I expected, she had forgotten. She couldn’t remember where they were meeting. She called someone and found out it is in Collierville, southeast of Knoxville. She called a couple of people to see if she could get a ride. That was a relief. I couldn’t have let her drive alone.
We went to Hathaway’s for dinner and had a special time. She went right to bed on our return home.
This morning I could tell she was somewhat disturbed. It turns out she had misplaced her PEO bag with all of her PEO information that she apparently is supposed to have at each meeting. All I know is that she takes it with her. Then she couldn’t find her credit cards and driver’s license. After taking her to meet her ride, I came back home and found her cards except for her driver’s license. In addition, she misplaced her ATM card a week or so before we went to Memphis. She had only had the replacement card a couple of weeks before losing it. She still has not found it. That was at least the third replacement ATM card she has had in the past year. If we don’t find it, we will have to get another one.
This continues to reinforce what I have said so many times. The person with AD really does recognize the problem and suffers dearly from it. It is just as frustrating to her as it is to me. We are reaching a point at which I need to take charge of everything. This is a challenge for me. For example, I really need to make sure she has her purse when we leave a restaurant or some other place; however, I just don’t think about such things. I will have to learn.
The other thing that still holds true is that her biggest problem is not in the kinds of things she has to remember when she is with people. She can handle ordinary interaction without people suspecting she has AD. The big problem is how well she functions throughout the day. She simply can’t get things done. I have to believe that within the year she is going to need to give up her work with the neighborhood association. I have a hard time imagining that she will get the directory done, and newsletters will be harder and harder to complete.
