I observe so many examples of “Living with Alzheimer’s” these days that I forget to document them for the blog. That’s a special problem when we have very active days as we had over the weekend. With our trip to Nashville on Saturday and a play yesterday afternoon, I failed to note several things.
One of those occurred yesterday morning. I thought it was noteworthy because I had written a post the day before in which I said that Kate almost always recognizes me as someone she knows and trusts. That wasn’t true yesterday. We were going to a play at 3:00, and I wanted us to have lunch without rushing, so I woke her about 10:30. I began by playing some soft music. Fifteen minutes later, I went in to see about getting her up. When I did, she looked at me strangely, and said, “Who are you?” I asked if she meant how we are related. She nodded yes. When I explained that I am her husband, she was surprised. Then I said, “You do recognize me as someone you know and are comfortable with, don’t you?” I expected her to answer yes, but she didn’t. Instead she said, “I don’t know.” Then I went in another direction. I said, “I am Richard Creighton, and I care about you very much. I’d like to take you to lunch. Would you like that?” She said, “Where are my clothes?” I said, “I’ve got them right here for you on the chair. Wouldn’t you like to take a shower before you dress?” She said, “Where is it?” I said, “It’s right over here. Let me show you.” Then I helped her out of bed and walked her to the shower. From that point on, everything went well. At lunch, she even used my name one time. Interestingly, I don’t recall her asking my name or hers the rest of the day.
One of the lessons I am learning is that explanations don’t seem to have the same power or effect that experience does. This is true for everyone she meets, not just for me. If I tell her we are going to have lunch with someone, she almost never knows who I am talking about. If I give her a little information about how we know them, that doesn’t seem to help. Once we are with them, it appears that she picks up more powerful clues. It’s her intuitive abilities that help more than her rational ones. I am sure that the longer we are with them, the more comfortable she feels. In an hour she picks up more information. This doesn’t mean that she remembers their names. It means she “senses” that they are people she knows and is comfortable with. The same thing seems to occur when she looks at photo albums. At first, she may not recognize some of the people. The longer she spends with the album, the better her recognition.
This discussion of recognition reminds me that she continues to have problems recognizing our house as “our” house. I noted above that she asked where the shower is. It is very common for her to ask where the bathroom is. She continues to want to follow me when we walk into the house, but not always. She also continues to confuse our house with a place we are staying while out of town. For example, after we got home from Nashville the other night, she asked if we were going to sleep here. I believe that is what she was thinking last night when she whispered my name and motioned to me to come over to her. When I got closer, she whispered, “Could you get me something to wear to bed?” I noticed that she had also closed our bedroom door. Earlier she had closed the door to the family room.
Something else that I noticed over the weekend is that she had some very talkative moments. One of those occurred Saturday night, after turning the lights out, she started talking about her mother and how much she helped other people. By itself that would not be unusual, but I was struck by some of her observations about people in general. She said that people have lots of different kinds of problems and generally don’t feel comfortable talking to others about them unless they are people they trust. She explained that her mother was that kind of person and could listen without being judgmental.
She was also talkative at lunch yesterday. Some of that involved teasing me. I said something about her birthday which is today. She asked how old she would be. When I told her, she asked how old I am. I said, “I’m 78, but I could pass for 50.” (Joking, of course.) She laughed and said, “Have you looked in the mirror lately.”
Her appreciation of comedy has never included slapstick or farce. Yesterday we went to see Arsenic and Old Lace at one of our local community theaters. It’s a farce from beginning to end. She didn’t enjoy it. It seems like most of the local productions are musicals. She can appreciate them because of the music. I don’t think I will get tickets to another play. They demand too much of her. That’s not a great sacrifice. There are plenty of musicals.
