In the past I have noted things like the Deja vu experiences that I haven’t normally considered symptoms of Alzheimer’s. I am noticing more recently. For example yesterday while at lunch, she asked me if I had paid her DAR dues. I told her I hadn’t and indicated that to the best of my knowledge she was not a member of DAR. She then went on to tell me that she had at least visited one of their meetings and was impressed with the women and how smart they are and how much they knew about South Carolina. That rang a bell with me. She was thinking about AAUW. She had attended a meeting of theirs about 6-8 months ago and told me the same story.
On the way home from dinner last night, she told me she wanted to show me where she had planted her plants. I assumed she was talking about the ones we had bought this afternoon. I didn’t think she had had enough time to plant them before dinner and hadn’t seen her go outside. In fact, she was still wearing the clothes she had worn to lunch. They didn’t bear any signs of her having worked in the yard. I said, “Do you mean the plants we just bought this afternoon?” She indicated yes. When I drove in the driveway, I could see all of the plants. They were left just where we had put them when we got home. I didn’t say anything. We got out of the car, and she walked me along the drive and out toward the front of the house. It didn’t appear that she could remember where she had put them but showed me plants that she had planted yesterday or the day before. I didn’t correct her.
Last night after dinner, we got in the pool. She seemed to get quite relaxed as she moved around. She began to talk more than she normally does. Most of the things she said involved the yard and what she was doing. At one point she pointed to the neighbors Legustrums. She told me that she had been pulling leaves off of them where they were hanging over their fence and near our wall. I can’t imagine that she had done so because of the height of the shrubs. She wouldn’t have been able to reach without a ladder. Then she told me that she was clearing out the space between the neighbor’s fence and our wall so that she could put plants there. This is a bizarre idea since no one would be able to see them at all. In fact, you can’t even get to the space unless you go to the end of our wall and walk through the 3-foot space between their fence and our wall. This kind of talk seems more like that of someone with a psychotic issue. As I am noticing and learning, I am thinking that the damage done to the brain by Alzheimer’s can cause a variety of symptoms in the same way as mental illness.
I continue to see short-term memories but cannot tell if it is any worse now than several weeks ago. On Saturday I took her to get a pedicure and manicure. When I picked her up, I paid, and gave her money to give the person as a tip. She hesitated and asked the receptionist if he could give the tip to the manicurist. As we were walking out to the car, she told me she did that because she couldn’t remember who had been the manicurist.
Another symptom that I have mentioned before is she fails to notice lots of things happening around her. This includes missing visual things as well as information in conversations. It is as though all stimuli are overwhelming. One small example occurred two times in as many days. The first occurred yesterday when I put on a new shirt that is quite colorful. She has never been one to notice many of the things I wear, but this shirt should have stood out. She never said a word. I wore another similar shirt in terms of brightness today. She hasn’t said anything. Another example comes from dinner last night. We split a pasta dish called seafood gorgonzola. It had shrimp, scallops, mushrooms, and bell peppers in a gorgonzola sauce. She got full before finishing her pasta. I noticed that she had not eaten all of the mushrooms and made a comment to that effect. It was on top center of the pasta, but she could not see it. To be sure it was not a large piece, but it was large enough that she would have seen it easily before Alzheimer’s.
Before finishing this entry, I feel the need to say that we are getting along well right now. I suspect that I am becoming more accustomed to her failing short-term memory. She is getting more childlike, but we get along well except for moments when she is irritated with me. That never lasts long. We are fortunate.
