Reality Check

Today, I had the decidedly pleasant experience of taking my two most beloved daughters (they also happen to be my only ones) to brunch at a favorite restaurant, the Park Cafe. It's just south of Liberty Park, has a nice selection of things, I guess what you would call and "edgy" clientele, and staff willing to cater to codgers wanting to talk with and hear from his daughters. While we each snatched morsels from Margaret's Park Cafe potatoes, we talked about GPS systems, attempting to raise a much higher percentage of our own food (by using the land available at all three of our homes), Civic Dialogue (Kathryn and I have a chance to be one the program), and yes, how are Mom and I doing regarding the elephant in the room, her disease recipiency and my care partner-ancy.

So how are we doing? Both Margaret and Rachel revealed some disturbing behaviors they had witnessed. These are not disturbing in the sense of dangerous or disgusting. Not at all. They are disturbing because they reveal a more advanced stage in the disease than I had noticed. That's probably because Mom get's around on long term memory around home. Long term memory seems to compensate for short term losses. For example, long term allows her to remember where the utensils are kept and how the plates are stacked. Tuesday, while Kathryn was co-tending Rachel's kids with Mary Grace, she decided to help out by putting away the just washed contents of the dishwasher. Rachel said she was shocked at how things were placed randomly, strangely throughout the Kitchen. I don't see much of that at home at all We cited a number of other advances such as simply not understanding sentences or seeming not to listen at all to what was being said. There is a notable decline in her ability to make rational decisions, or to understand reasoned replies. Sequences of tasks, calendaring, and doing anything but the simplest of word-processing are greatly diminished. Interestingly, when in a public situation, none of these losses seem to show up at all. She is such a beloved people person and can carry on conversations about past relationships, people have no idea about the losses we are seeing.

What I conclude is that she is probably not on the placebo in the clinical trial, the supplements are having little effect and that the slope of the decline has started to increase. These is no describing the impact on us, on me. Here is a great woman who has added so much to the lives of so many people, losing her memory or it and her ability to cope with life, a little each day. It is wrenching me to the core and that is an inadequate description. It's not like the sudden loss of a companion. It is a daily, irreversible, relentless losing. One is reminded every day, every moment every day, of the disappearances. A moment ago, for example, while writing to her sister, she asked for our home phone number.

Enough of that. We have decided to do some things differently. Margaret and Rachel are becoming part-time care partners. Margaret will come once a week to spend time with Mom. That has two advantages. It builds their ever strengthening relationship. It relieves me. Do I need relief, you ask? The recently released Maria Schriver report says care partners need it desperately. They have a much higher incidence of fatal diseases after having survived the constant pressures of their service. I want to serve all I can and survive well, if that is in the cards. Thus Margaret will join the core of friends coming to be with Kathryn for walks, talks, and projects (such as Judy Pugh, Susan Cottrell, and Marjorie Spencer.) Now to Rachel. She also will spell me, like Margaret. Mom loves all of her grandkids. Rachel can use the constant stress emanating from youngsters and K. can play with them either here or at Rachel's place. Rachel will also come here to help clean the house and will use Mom to help clean the Preslar home. That will help greatly.

So that is the record for now. I really will begin to write as often as possible, and more meaningfully too. It has been a solemn day for me, but I feel strengthened as well. DadApaLen