Like most of our days, we had a variety of experiences yesterday. Kate woke up on her own at 10:00 which worked well since I had a 1:00 appointment to have my car serviced and wanted to eat lunch prior to that. As usual, she was slow to be ready for much conversation, but she appeared to recognize me and smiled when I first saw her.
As we drove away from the house, she said something that surprised me. I don’t remember what it was, but Kate thinks I underestimate her abilities and expressed it to me. That led to her saying, “Men are like that. Women could probably do a lot of things better than a man.” I said very playfully (at least I intended it to be playful), “But I’ve been a “womenslibber” for a long time. She laughed and said (very skeptically), “Are you kidding?” I decided not to extend the conversation any longer and let it die. This kind of talk has never been part of our ordinary conversation until very recently. I don’t know what prompted it, but she has brought up the topic on a number of occasions in the past few weeks.
It was one of those days when she was especially concerned about “where we are.” I repeatedly told her during lunch, and she worked hard to remember. She just couldn’t. During lunch, she asked me to tell her about her parents. I mentioned both their names, and she immediately picked up on her mother’s qualities. It intrigues me that she focuses so much more on her mother than her father. She has always loved both of them. When we talk about her father, she always speaks affectionately about him. On the other hand, her mother receives the lion’s share of her comments. I believe that relates to the fact her father died almost twenty-nine years ago, and it has only been thirteen years since her mother passed. In addition, her mother lived with us the last five and a half years of her life.
We had appointments for haircuts in the afternoon, and I discovered a new issue that we are facing. A couple of weeks ago Kate’s brother’s wife, Virginia, mentioned that pulling one’s hair is something that is common among people (women?) with dementia. I think she was responding to some of my posts in which I said that Kate has acquired a habit of running her fingers through her hair. She starts near her skull and pulls a few strands of hair upward. Virginia said that this can lead to infections of the scalp and that I might ask the hairdresser to watch for this. Today was my first time to ask her to be attentive to this. I had forgotten to do so; however, as we were about to leave, she approached me and said that she had seen some places on her scalp that show a bit of irritation. She, too, had seen this kind of thing before. The big question is “what can we do about it?” My first step was simply to tell her that the hairdresser had noticed the irritation and suggested that she not run her hands through her hair as she had been doing. She was very responsive; however, it’s impossible for her to remember. It was not long before she got into bed and began again. I reminded her, and she stopped. I am sure that she will not remember. We may have a problem on our hands.
I had just finished paying the check after dinner when Kate said something about our relationship. It wasn’t long after that when she looked at me and said something about the possibility of our getting married. She could tell by looking at me that I didn’t know exactly what to say and responded before I could answer. She said, “It’s just something we could think about.” I said, “I love you and have good news for you. We are married.” She said, “We are?” I said, “Yes. We’ve been married for 55 years, and they have all been good years.” As I said this, I feared that by telling her the truth might cause a different kind of reaction. She might have taken that as a sign that “something” is seriously wrong with her. (On several occasions, she has been concerned about that and no longer remembers that she has Alzheimer’s.) Instead, she was happy, and her eyes filled with tears. We sat there for a few minutes holding hands across the table. This is the second time she has suggested our getting married. In both situations I have been touched by this tender expression of her feelings and was glad she was happy when she learned that we really are married.
