Although I have often said that most people, even those close to her, don’t recognize Kate’s Alzheimer’s, I do often wonder what kinds of things they do notice. Today Kevin called on his way to see an out-of-town client. We talked about an hour. He asked my impressions of two things that he and his children had noticed during our recent trip to Lubbock. The first involved his dinner with Kate the night we arrived. He had already told me how much he had enjoyed the dinner and how talkative she had been. Today he also said she seemed to talk so comfortably and said things that she had never said before. More specifically, he commented on how much she liked the meal and especially the waiter. He said she also talked about our family and Kate’s and my caring for our parents. I told him that it was. I indicated that especially now she seems to be in a period of time where she doesn’t dwell on her condition, is not in depression over it, and is more childlike that gets expressed in how much and what she says.
The second thing involves his children. He said they had noticed how frightened she was when we were out driving in the car. He wondered if that were something I had noticed. I told him absolutely. I was quite surprised the children had noticed and did not recall anything specific that happened in the car to cause the children’s perception but that it was correct.
He also said that Heather had recently talked with him about our care for parents and asked if he were going to be traveling to Knoxville more to take care of us. I thought this was an interesting thing for her to think about. It seemed to Kevin that she was encouraging him to do so.
The phone call was a good one. I told him how things were going and what changes I saw occurring. Specifically, I mentioned that she is more childlike, loves many things (the meal was perfect, the waiter was perfect, . . .) and that she seems to show less concern about her condition which I take as a significant shift in the progression of her illness. I didn’t at any time feel any intrusion on his part. It was just a good honest discussion of how things are going and what is happening.
