Sleep, Memory Issues, and Confusion

We had no special obligations yesterday, so I let Kate sleep a little later. When I checked on her about 10:30, she opened her eyes. I asked if she were ready to get up. She wasn’t. I got her up shortly after noon. She wanted to sleep longer but got up anyway without making a fuss. As she has done on a couple of other occasions recently, she got up, showered, and dressed reasonably quickly. It was still almost 2:00 when we left for lunch.

When she got up, she looked at me and asked, “Are you my daddy?” I told I was her husband. She was surprised. Then she asked my name. When I told her, she asked if I were her daddy again. This was like another occasion in the past few days. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t remember my name or that I am her husband. It was the fact that she asked so many times in succession. In addition, nothing seemed to jog her memory until we were well into our lunch.

She never seemed frustrated or disturbed, only puzzled that she and I were married. As we pulled out of the garage on the way to lunch, she asked again if I were her daddy. Again she was surprised when I said I was her husband. I commented on the fact that she seemed to be comfortable with me the way she would if she knew me. She acknowledged that she wasn’t afraid of me or bothered by me. She just didn’t know who I was.

When we arrived at the restaurant, I went around to her door and opened it. She said, “Richard” and pointed to her cup in the cup holder. She was asking if she should take it in. I told her to leave it in the car and then said, “You said my name.” She said, “What is it?”

It was no surprise that she pointed to the enlarged photo of Frank Sinatra on the wall of the restaurant and asked me who he is. She must have asked between five and ten times while we were there; however, she did remember that she has bad feelings about him. Before lunch was over she stopped asking my name, her name, and the names of our children. Part of the reason was that I felt as though I were pummeling her with information, and she needed a break. I think it was also a result of her having a longer experience in a restaurant that we frequent every Sunday. We talked with the hostess, our server, and another server we know. I think all of these things helped to bring back bits of her memory. A few minutes before we left the restaurant, she said, “You’re a good husband.” I said, “What makes you say that?” She said, “Somebody told me.”

We left the restaurant shortly after 3:30. In the car Kate asked if she could take a nap when we got home. I told her that would be fine but that I was surprised she was still sleepy since she had only been up less than four hours. When we walked in the house, she asked what she should do. I told her I thought she might like to brush her teeth and spend some time together in the family room. She went directly to a chair in the family room where I handed her the iPad. I went to brush my teeth. Before I finished brushing, she got into our bed for a nap. She was there until 5:30 when she told me she was hungry.

It’s not just names she is forgetting. I notice a number of other little things. For example, she asked me to tell her how to flush the toilet last night. For some time she hasn’t been flushing. I never thought about the fact that she might have forgotten how. Sometimes she doesn’t know where to put her cup when she gets in the car. She occasionally forgets where the seat belt is located though she remembers to put it on. A couple of nights ago after returning home from dinner, she walked out the back of the garage instead of coming into the house. When I explained that we were going in the house, she said, “How was I to know?”

As we returned home after dinner, Kate said, “It looks so different after dark. I’m glad I have a ‘witchie’ to drive me.” This is another instance of her getting mixed up with words. The words are sometimes unintelligible or unrecognizable. In this case she was trying to say “someone to drive me.” I said, “You wouldn’t know how to get home?” She answered, “I could get there. It was just take me a while.” This is one of those little signs of her retaining a sense of independence. It happens most frequently when she asks for my hand going up and down curbs or stairs. She frequently says, “I could do it myself. I just feel better holding your hand.”

These changes are coming about gradually but are frequent. Life is very different now than it was in the early years after her diagnosis.