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More of My Own Frustration

Yesterday I had another of those experiences in which I got frustrated with Kate. We planned to go to a movie at 5:30 yesterday afternoon. For that reason I got out to see Dad a little on the earlier side and left Kate at my office where she was working on her photo albums. I let her know that I would come back to pick her up at 5:10 so that we could make the 5:30 movie. Knowing that she doesn’t remember time very well, I called her when I was close to the office and told her where I was so that she could be ready. She asked me to call her again when I got closer which I didn’t do because I was already practically there. When I arrived (5:09), I called her from the car to let her know I was there. She said she would close up her computer and be right out. It’s not that she took a long time, but it does take a few minutes for the computer to shut down and then for her to get her things together. When she got in the car, I said something about her not being ready and then said what I wish I could take back, “You’re hopeless.” Now I am suffering guilt for not being more understanding.

Recently I have become more aware of her loss of short-term memory. Two or three times in the past few months, she has completely forgotten something we had talked about the night before. I don’t simply mean she had forgotten the facts or details; she didn’t even recall our having a conversation.

She continues to misplace her phone, keys, glasses, etc. I would like to get her an iPad because she has had such problems with her computer; however, I am concerned that she will leave it some place.

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My Own Moments of Frustration

Just a quick update since the last entry. Last week for the first time, I found myself being a little bit bothered by Kate’s forgetfulness. In addition to the usual things that happen, phone misplaced, plans forgotten, etc., two small things actually led to my not being understanding the way I have been. What I mean is that I intellectually understood, but I was emotionally bothered anyway. Here is what happened.

First, she didn’t make any effort to get ready for the visit of our friends, the Robinsons, this past Wednesday. Normally, she might work to get the house in the best shape possible. She arranged for the person who helps her with landscaping to come over at 10:00 that morning even though the Robinsons were due to arrive between 11:00 and 11:30. Then she stayed outside working with her longer than I thought she should have. I went out at 10:30 just to remind her of the time and that they were coming as early as 30 minutes from now. She ultimately came in closer to 11:00. She wanted to scoop up some things that were in the family room and dump them on the floor and chairs in our bedroom and to close the bedroom door. I told her I felt it looked better to have the door open. She accepted that and put things in our bathroom and closed that door.

The other thing involved her completing a letter of recommendation for a local college student’s application to PEO for a scholarship for the fall. This is something she was supposed to do at least 2 weeks ago. She was going to do this before her PEO meeting on Thursday morning. The first complication she ran into was that her computer “died.” That meant she needed to use mine. Her time ran short. She decided not to go to PEO and to come to my office to work on the letter. It took her almost until lunch to get to the office. Then I was going to lunch and she went with me with plans to work on the letter after lunch which she did. I left to go see Dad around 4:00. When I got home after 6:00, she was not there. I called and reached her on her cell at the office. She was still working. When she was ready to leave, she couldn’t fine her purse. I suggested she call the restaurant where we had eaten lunch. She did so and got the purse. (The week before she misplaced her primary car keys and is now using one of the backups that I had made the last time she had lost her key).

Although I thought the letter was essentially finished and all she needed to do was mail it, she worked at the office Friday afternoon. She needed help getting it printed and checked and rechecked the letter and the student’s written statement of need. She found this difficult and was very frustrated. I said that in the future she might try to minimize her doing things like this. She said she had been thinking the same thing. This is another recognition of the impact of AD. By that point, I found myself more sympathetic and haven’t felt anything but acceptance of the situation since.

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An Everyday Mistake

I just got an email from Kate and here is another illustration of confusion. At lunch she said she had to get money for our housekeeper who had said we owed her for last week and this week. When she went to Doris to pay her, she found that she had misunderstood Doris. We had already paid her for last week before we left for Edinburgh.

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Home from Edinburgh

We got back from Edinburgh Tuesday night, 6/1. We had a great trip. It was just what I had wanted it to be. Being with Kate 24 hours a day for 10 days gave me a better opportunity to see how she is doing. The only thing worth commenting on is that it reinforced my awareness that her short-term memory is poor. She often forgot things I would have told her only a few minutes earlier.

I continue to notice that she gets a lot of things wrong. For example, she told me a movie started at 6:00 last evening. We got there just before that time and discovered that it started at 5:30. Another example: we have tickets to a play at a local theater for tonight. She had it on her calendar for tomorrow night. These are mistakes that any of us might make; it is just that she makes them regularly. It means that you can never trust that what she says is correct.

One other thing to report is that I saw a movie on the return flight from Amsterdam entitled 1776 Stories of Me and My Wife. It is about a Sci-Fi writer whose wife has cancer. He decides to write one story a day for her as a way of boosting her spirits. His feeling for his wife hit so close to home that I was wiping tears from my eyes for the last 30-45 minutes of the movie.

I also had trouble sleeping one night in Edinburgh and found myself thinking about Kate’s AD and her impending decline.

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Difficulty with Medications and Losing Things

Yesterday morning as I was leaving for church, I noticed Kate sitting on the bed looking just a bit sad. I asked if she was all right. At first she said fine and then she said that she had had trouble putting her pills in the pillbox for the coming week. I know she was seeing that as another sign of her AD. This followed her losing some clippers in the yard. She went to Lowe’s on Saturday and bought several new clippers as well as several pairs of gloves.

Later in the day she mentioned that she had been unable to find her debit card which has been missing 2-3 weeks. We drove her car to lunch and looked around the front seats and found it. I said, “I know you feel better about not having to go to the bank and tell them you needed a replacement.” She said it was not that so much as the personal feeling of knowing she had lost it.

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Missing Hair Appointments and Other Things

This past Thursday, Kate had a bad day. I had realized it in the afternoon sometime when we spoke on the phone but didn’t know what was wrong. When I got home from seeing Dad, she was lying down on the bed with the TV on. She didn’t want to talk at first and I backed off. Ultimately, she, of her own volition, told me that she thought her hairdresser “knows.”

I seem to recall that she had missed an appointment on Tuesday and this was a rescheduled appointment on Thursday. Instead of seeming to be annoyed, they were very understanding and kind. When she left, they said something like, “We love you.” Over the past few years, they have become accustomed to her missing a fair number of appointments. She suspects that they are just now putting it together. She was down only that day and evening. She seemed fine the next day.

In the meantime, she continues to show signs of forgetfulness. This most commonly involves the misplacing of something – her phone or something else. I am facing this from 2 sides , Kate and Dad. He is regularly “losing” something at his nursing facility. Typically he can’t find his phone. That happened over the weekend, but he found it in his top drawer. Yesterday when I started to put his bridge in his mouth before dinner, it was missing. I decided the dentist had come by and taken it to make an adjustment since I had left a message for this yesterday morning. As it turned out, Doris, who washed Dad’s clothes yesterday, found his bridge in one of his pants pockets. On the way to dinner last night, Kate told me that was the good news. The bad news was that she can’t find it. She looked all over. This morning she called Doris who told her she was sitting in a chair in the bedroom when she had given her the bridge. Kate went to the chair and looked all around it and found it on the floor.

Just as typical are the issues with the computer. She can’t seem to understand and recall how she downloads books from the computer to her Nano. I feel confident other things are happening with the family album she is working on. It is bound to be taking her longer to complete it because of this.

We are having lunch together today and going out to a benefit tonight. I try to keep us as active as possible and we have been more active since the diagnosis. In the next 10 days or so before we leave for Scotland, we have several events. I like to think this is good for her.

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Attempting to Live Normally

It is now almost 3 ½ months since Kate’s diagnosis. There isn’t much to report since the last post. We are both moving into a period that I would describe as “normal” except that we can’t forget, and we make references to AD more and with more personal meaning than in the past. I find myself avoiding mentioning anything about other people with AD. For example, in SS this past Sunday, Pam was clapping as we sang Happy Anniversary for one of the couples in the class. She seemed to be enjoying herself so. Normally she doesn’t say anything, but is so sweet and gives everyone a hug when they greet her. I shy away from telling Kate because I don’t want her to dwell on her future condition. However, she sees enough on her own that I can’t prevent such experiences entirely.

She continues to work on the family album. It is so hard for her to remember how to import pictures and where she has stored them on her computer. She gets awfully frustrated.

I was out of town last week, and she got along just fine. I had been concerned about leaving her as we both have noted her increasing dependence on me. I sometimes feel caught in a conflict between wanting her to be as independent as she can be and wanting to help her as much as I can.

The movement into a normal period is illustrated by the fact that she dropped yoga after her one-month trial. She originally said she would go back, but I am beginning to wonder. She is working in the yard which makes her feel good both physically and psychologically. Perhaps when the album is done, she will try yoga again.

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Cleaning and Organizing

This morning I noticed that Kate was up and could see through the sliding glass doors from my view in the kitchen that she was working on the top drawer of her end table. I went in to say hello since she is rarely up that early (about 7:15). She was cleaning out and organizing her top drawer. The only reason I point this out is that for several months she has been trying to put more order in her life. She has worked on cleaning out closets and drawers, etc. I suspect this is a reaction to her feeling of a loss of control over things. She missed a meeting yesterday morning with a PEO. Kate had written it down for today instead – something she has done frequently over the past few years.

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Everyday Life

Nothing too eventful has taken place since my last posting with respect to Kate’s AD. She did call me yesterday to tell me that she had missed another hair appointment. This has occurred a number of times over the years even as recently as a few weeks ago. She gave me the time of the new appointment and asked me to keep tabs on her hair appointments. She will, of course, do so herself, but I will be her backup in the same way that I am for her medicine.

As we were headed to dinner last night, she told me that she had encountered a problem on her Facebook page. When I tried to explain what might have happened she got frustrated and said she wouldn’t understand it anyway. I understand, but at each moment when she brings up something like this, I forget and proceed with an answer that she can’t understand. I trust I will get better with time.

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Another Instance of Getting Lost

I ended quickly on the last entry because Kate called and said she was in the parking lot and didn’t feel like coming in at the time. As planned in the earlier conversation, we went to Casa Bella. We had our usual veal piccata along with amaretto cheese cake for dessert. For extra measure I decided to try their pistachio gelato which was good but not nearly as good as the cheesecake.

It turns out that Kate got lost as I has suspected. She drove around a long time and finally called the hostess for her meeting that she wasn’t coming. She was clearly frustrated, and I am sure, though she didn’t say so, that she attributed the problem as related to her Alzheimer’s. I commented over lunch that we know that she is geographically-challenged and that we can work harder to relieve any frustrations in that area. I also noted the conversation we had had with her behavioral psychologist commented on how well she does with the verbal area and that that is something that will work in her favor going forward since so much of day-in-day-out social activity relies on such skills. I also said that she might put greater emphasis on making scrapbooks and albums for the grandchildren as this is something she enjoys and that the grandchildren will appreciate in later years.

Having time at lunch in a place that has been special to us was just the right thing. Not surprisingly, she had thought of suggesting Casa Bella herself. She was quite calm during lunch and left for home relaxed and ready to tackle the family album that she and her brother Ken have worked on for the past 4-5 months. During Ken and Virginia’s visit to Knoxville this past week, Ken and Kate were able to make a good bit of headway. It now looks like they are into the final editing. I think they are both beginning to see the end. My guess is that they may let it go sometime in the next 2-3 weeks.

Because of their visit, I haven’t written anything about our visit to talk with Lillian Walters, the social worker at Kate’s physician’s office. The visit went well. Nothing of special note came out of it. We did not schedule another visit but Kate said she would prefer to call when she felt the need. Kate later told me she was glad I had gone with her although nothing occurred that makes me think it is good for me to be there. She began by asking Kate how she was doing, and Kate hesitantly said she had her ups and downs. This surprised me because I would have said she has done remarkably well. At the same time I recognize there are times of frustration that occur. We talked with Lillian about her irritability. She suggested that Kate give herself permission to excuse herself for some of this and to organize her life to minimize frustration. We talked about my doing more things and how Kate feels about that. One thing in particular was taking over the checking accounts. Kate said that was fine with her.