And I suppose she doesn't have a lot else to distract her.
Thing is, your short term memory does deteriorate with age - but you accommodate that. My strategy is to either Do It Now or Write It Down. But if your dad is being deprived of agency the whole time, then he doesn't have the impetus to develop ways of coping.
@Chasing Shadows please don’t feel pathetic for posting. Every step of this road with aging parents is strange and can be desperately hard, in varying ways. This thread was so helpful for me and I hope it will be helpful for you.
Thank you for that.
My mother died in January, and now about exactly 6 months on, I am emerging from what I can only think has been a fog of mourning in which I’ve been barely able to keep up with my own daily self- and house-care. It got to be quite hard living with her, (I think I just got completely burnt-out on care-giving), but now that she’s gone it turns out to be hard, in different ways, getting on with living on my own.
I'm sorry that you lost your mum and much of your mourning so far will have been experienced in lockdown which must have made things even worse for you.
One of Dad's doctors has suggested a memory test, but that was at Mum's prompting.
I'm not sure if I'm unusually scatterbrained, but a lot of what Mum is reporting is the sort of thing I do, and I'm quite confident I don't have dementia! Yesterday a box of biscuits arrived here from Marks& Spencer - I had ordered it as a surprise for Mum and Dad, but had managed to have it sent to my own address. As I have no self-control around biscuits, I donated the box to the Food Bank, so no harm done.
But if Dad did something like that, Mum would be in despair and convinced it was a sign of dementia. Dad's "confusion" yesterday was whether his next hospital appointment was for bloods or chemo. I'm not sure it warranted Mum telling me over the phone about it.
But at the same time, Mum is reporting a lot of these "moments of confusion."
This could be age. My own Dad has 'moments of confusion' too. His recent UTI and cellulitis created terrible confusion and in the midst of it I listened while his doctor put him through the dementia test, which he passed easily even in the midst of fever confusion. My Dad is 85. So it may just be that there is age decline which results in your Dad looking different to how you have known him. My own Dad always had a keen memory and was very particular in how he did things. Nowadays his 'moments of confusion' leave him looking and sounding old (which is a strange thing to say of a man of 85 but until very recently it was hard to believe he was that age).
These last few months must have been very, very difficult for those who have been shielding. It must have been a lonely and stressful time when the smallest things can be exaggerated or feared as something worse. Let's hope the virus remains sufficiently suppressed that people who have been staying away for so long (albeit for good reason) will soon be able to enjoy a more normal life again.
From my experience there is a lot of difference between 'normal' forgetting stuff and dementia forgetting stuff. With normal forgetting you realise what you've done, even if on reflection it seems a daft thing to have done. With dementia you don't remember it at all. So to my mother it made more sense that the neighbours had got in, sight unseen, and moved her purse from her handbag to her shopping bag rather than she'd accidently put her purse in the wrong bag while out shopping.
It sounds to me as though Dad is forgetting the sort of stuff that I'm forgetting, but taking longer than I would to realise "no, that's wrong." But it's hard to get a sense when I'm not seeing them, and I know that Mum's anxiety tends to make things seem bleaker than they are.
Actually, in terms of not making sense, that would be Mum and her anxiety. That's been lifelong though. She's often misunderstood something because her anxiety has clouded her thinking.
NEQ, just because I'm not commenting doesn't mean I don't care
I just don't know what to say that's helpful, especially as you can't actually get to see him - but I think, judging from your comments about your mother, that he isn't as bad as she thinks. He may still be a little worse when he isn't on the phone to you, but he probably is Not That Bad.
From my experience there is a lot of difference between 'normal' forgetting stuff and dementia forgetting stuff. With normal forgetting you realise what you've done, even if on reflection it seems a daft thing to have done. With dementia you don't remember it at all. So to my mother it made more sense that the neighbours had got in, sight unseen, and moved her purse from her handbag to her shopping bag rather than she'd accidently put her purse in the wrong bag while out shopping.
You explained the difference really clearly there.
It sounds to me as though Dad is forgetting the sort of stuff that I'm forgetting, but taking longer than I would to realise "no, that's wrong." But it's hard to get a sense when I'm not seeing them, and I know that Mum's anxiety tends to make things seem bleaker than they are.
Actually, in terms of not making sense, that would be Mum and her anxiety. That's been lifelong though. She's often misunderstood something because her anxiety has clouded her thinking.
Mum phoned the doctor about Dad's "confusion" She didn't tell Dad first, because she knew he wouldn't agree. Dad was not happy.
The doctor gave him a test over the phone, but it was stuff like mental arithmetic. There's never been any suggestion that Dad struggles with that - he enjoys sudoku etc. He aced every question until the last one - what day is it, and what's the date?
Every day has been much the same since lockdown, so he struggled to come up with "Wednesday" and then thought it was the 20th July, rather than the 22nd.
Is struggling to remember the day and date in lockdown serious? Because I'm doing that, too!
Dad's really annoyed that Mum didn't speak to him before phoning the doctor. Mum's disappointed that the questions the doctor asked weren't relevant to what she sees as Dad's failing cognitive abilities.
However, the GP is contacting Dad's oncologist - I wonder if he thinks Dad has "chemo brain." I'm rather hoping that might be the case. I think a diagnosis of "memory issues as a side effect of chemo" would be easier than "early stages of dementia"
Dad's on ongoing "maintenance" chemo; enough to stop the cancer from gaining ground, but not enough to reduce his levels. He's had gaps - his chemo was stopped to allow him to have a prostate reduction, for example - but I think he's had four years worth of chemo in the last six years.
Mum phoned the doctor about Dad's "confusion" She didn't tell Dad first, because she knew he wouldn't agree. Dad was not happy.
Has your father given permission for the doctor to discuss his health with his wife, or has he a POA, and made her his attorney ? (not expecting an actual answer - respecting his privacy)
Mr RoS has slow comprehension and memory problems (long standing, head injury related), complicated by some temporary deafness, making telephone conversations a bit hit or miss. The surgery would not tell me anything, without his permission, so he had to write a letter authorising them to speak to me about any aspect of his health.
If your mother is speaking to the doctor about matters he does not wish her to, I presume he can withdraw permission - either in full, or on a particular aspect of his health.
Would he consider that?
Or would that set the fur flying?
They give you mental arithmetic tests to measure your cognitive ability?
Mark me as a Fail now.
Apparently they also ask you what day comes after Wednesday. Dad doesn't, as far as I aware, have any intellectual slippage at all - it's more of a "where did I leave my glasses?" "have I had the white pills yet?" "is this my first or second glass of water?" type of thing.
I'm so glad my parents and I went to a lawyer, and all three of us drew up durable power of attorney and medical surrogacy papers, as well as updating our wills. My daughter has a copy of my POA and MS for her use, and I keep copies of Mom and Dad's to show all their doctors. It has saved so much trouble for me.
I do understand that here in the US those papers have different powers than those of you who live elsewhere. Mom and Dad can't just state that their doctors can't speak with me.
They give you mental arithmetic tests to measure your cognitive ability?
Mark me as a Fail now.
MMSE (Mini Mental State/Status Exam) is the most commonly used screener here. It;s a PDF and brief look online suggests squabbles about it, so not hot-linking, rather putting into "code". I'm reminded of the squabbles over the Rorschach Inkblot Tests. There was a question in some other version which required the person to say "Methodist Episcopalian" (repeat after me), which I raise only because of "Christian unrest" and query why these two denominations and why in that order.
The other screener most often given is the (GCS) Glascow Coma Scale which is after you get a hit to your head and they want to screen for a mTBI (mild traumatic brain injury - no skull fracture, usually negative CT/MRI). The term "concussion" being deprecated, sort of like "nervous breakdown" re emotional concerns.
My interest this week is personal to my father.
My father went by ambulance to hospital earlier this week. Blind man lost in his suite, hallucinating and actually aware that he was doing so once I spoke to him. Thankfully he had his cordless phone in his pocket and answered or would he still be standing with spilled lunch thinking he had been transported to a strange building with silent people shining spotlights? No doubt the Emerg doc gave him these tests. Sounds neurological to me, he was clear the prior day and he captured awareness that his perceptions were unreal when we talked We are, of course, not allowed in the hospital. House staff give us updates. Wondering if he'll make it out, and if we'll see him alive again.
I pulled out Marcus Aurelius "Meditations" last night, along with Harold Bloom's "Where Shall Wisdom Be Found". I prefer the rhythm of Bloom's take on Job 12:28ff this morning:
But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?
Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.
The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not with me.
It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.
Though Aurelius' admonition that life events you don't control are only evil if you allow yourself to be drawn that way into them seems good advice. Must remain stoic and accepting of what's transpiring to support all the others. I'll schedule tears for later.
Every day has been much the same since lockdown, so he struggled to come up with "Wednesday" and then thought it was the 20th July, rather than the 22nd.
Is struggling to remember the day and date in lockdown serious? Because I'm doing that, too!
Yeah, me too. I usually know what day of the week it is (because I'm working from home, and I have a weekly pattern of meetings etc.) but I don't have a regular need to know what the date is, so I always have to look it up. I know it's some time in the second half of July, but not much more than that.
If I had a doctor's appointment, I might or might not know what day it was - depending on whether I was the one checking the calendar, or whether Mrs C said at breakfast "you've got a doctor's appointment this morning". If I went because she said "go to the doctors at 10", then today's date may have never entered my conscious awareness.
It's like if you asked me what the weather was like this morning. If I went outside, I'd know, because I was in it. But I haven't left my house, so your question is really "did I happen to glance out of the window and pay attention to what the weather was", and I never have a reason to do that. I can tell you that the weather wasn't particularly noticeable - there wasn't a big loud thunderstorm or something - but it may or may not have rained, and could be sunny or cloudy, and hot or very hot, and I wouldn't know.
Sorry to hear about your father @NOprophet_NØprofit .
I hope you can get to see your parents soon @North East Quine and see for yourself if there are any causes for concern.
They give you mental arithmetic tests to measure your cognitive ability?
Mark me as a Fail now.
it's more of a "where did I leave my glasses?" "have I had the white pills yet?" "is this my first or second glass of water?"
Ah, that's me, and I'm not yet 50. Along with 'why did I come upstairs' and that nasty 'I know I have forgotten something, but that's all I know - I have no idea what it might have been'. Oh, and when the 'thing' comes back, there's no longer the sharp snappy 'aha, *that's* what it was' - more a foggy, sloppy 'hmm, perhaps this is thing I have half-forgotten I had forgotten'.
Having spent a few days in hospital recently, once again I am in awe of NHS staff, their skill, care and patience. In one ward another patient was an elderly gentleman, who had no idea where he was or what was going on. A nurse was with him constantly, to reassure him.
He had a warning of the doctor's phone call, Gee D- Mum told him she'd phoned the doctor, after she had done it. She couldn't discuss it with him before she phoned because he wouldn't have agreed.
They seem to have the worst outcome just now - Dad is angry that Mum went behind his back, and Mum is upset that the doctor asked easy questions which didn't address what she sees as the problem.
My brother and I are both baffled as to why Mum is assuming "dementia" and won't accept that "chemo brain" affects memory. She is convinced Dad is at the top of a slope, about to slide down into full-blown dementia.
Mum is 87, and is still on top of her game - immaculate house, cooking to a very high standard, still seeing her role in life as helper and organiser. She's fuelled by nervous energy, Calvinist work ethic and a constant need to appease an angry God, but she's truly impressive.
@North East Quine, I can well imagine that your mum might see things that others don't. I was worried about my mum's cognitive abilities sometime before my brother realised that there really was a problem, not just me winding her up. The trouble with mini memory tests is that they test memory, not the loss of logic that seems to come first with some dementias. Until more exhaustive tests are done chemo brain seems as good an explanation as dementia. I don't want to add to your stress but has your mum been tested? My mother kept on telling people I had dementia which was why I was making things up about her. I just wonder if your mother is realising she can't do all that she used to and finds your dad's confusion a likely explanation.
He had a warning of the doctor's phone call, Gee D- Mum told him she'd phoned the doctor, after she had done it. She couldn't discuss it with him before she phoned because he wouldn't have agreed.
I was not being critical of you or your mother, but even given the notice of the phone call, was he aware of the testing the doctor undertook? That's what I was referring to.
@Sarasa it's very possible Mum is seeing things that others don't.
I've been dealing with Mum's anxiety all my life, and so my first thought tends to be that this is just Mum again. Dad sounds fine on the phone, but I know that doesn't mean much.
Also, there have been times when things Mum has said to other people about me have filtered back and I've scarcely recognised myself.
"She who expects the worst will not be disappointed" - which is my version of "prepare for the worst and hope for the best".
Not sure that NEQ's mother is doing the "preparing" and "hoping bit", just living in a perpetual state of anxiety, which can't be doing her own health much good.
I took Dad (and Mom because I can't leave her alone that long) to his dermatologist yesterday. It was just last Fall when he had surgery for a serious, large melanoma. The doctor took five biopsies, which she was pretty sure are cancer and froze about a dozen other places. As long as we can catch these things as quickly as possible, I think Dad will be ok.
However, he kept asking why he had to go to the dermatologist. I hope that was just because he didn't like all the freezing and cutting, and not because he didn't understand the logic of it all.
Re power of attorney and reporting concerns: it is perfectly OK for anyone to report concerns about someone else’s health to a doctor. What is not OK is for the doctor to disclose any information about that person to you.
In the past I have reported concerns about my dad’s physical health to a doctor when I was fairly sure his symptoms were more serious than he realized. I also once told my GP that a neighbor further up the road appeared to be entering a manic episode (this was someone I knew had bipolar disorder and had the same GP). He listened to my account of the conversation, thanked me for raising my concerns and said he’d call her in for a general medication review and assess the situation.
Here, pass the screening for Covid and adhere to instructions so as to stay on the list, max 2 people per patient, and you may visit in hospital one at a time 1 hour each per day. Except possibly only 1 if visiting spots are full. So that's something good.
Nursing staff are wonderful. He's having memories. Of being a small boy. Stories. Visions.
My father and oldest son were supposed to have an outdoor meeting with my mother at her nursing home on Friday. It was cancelled because she had two infections and an elevated temperature. I spoke to her today and she sounded very dopey. Sometimes anti-biotics can knock it out of you but she has been sounding more dopey than not when I have spoken to her recently. Fuck covid-19 and its isolation of nursing home denizens.
I got the report on Dad's biopsies this morning: three squamous cell carcinomas and two basal cell carcinomas. Very relieved that none are melanoma!! We'll schedule (hopefully today) another trip to make sure all the cancer is gone.
So, when I called Dad with the info, he was outside in the sun, preparing to fix some screening. No, of course he didn't have a hat or sunscreen on. :rollingmyeyes:
This will probably sound insensitive and wrong: but sometimes people need to hurry up and die already. The strain is so great. In normal times we could have others designated as visitors. I wait around for a one hour visit, which takes 2 hours because of screening and infection control you have to wear.
They give you mental arithmetic tests to measure your cognitive ability?
Mark me as a Fail now.
Apparently they also ask you what day comes after Wednesday. Dad doesn't, as far as I aware, have any intellectual slippage at all - it's more of a "where did I leave my glasses?" "have I had the white pills yet?" "is this my first or second glass of water?" type of thing.
That sounds very similar to my own Dad. It's a bit troubling really isn't it?
I got the report on Dad's biopsies this morning: three squamous cell carcinomas and two basal cell carcinomas. Very relieved that none are melanoma!! We'll schedule (hopefully today) another trip to make sure all the cancer is gone.
So, when I called Dad with the info, he was outside in the sun, preparing to fix some screening. No, of course he didn't have a hat or sunscreen on. :rollingmyeyes:
My Dad went the complete opposite way when he was diagnosed with squamous (in his nose, resulting in a big chunk of his nose being removed as he hadn't taken Mum and I seriously when we said he should go to the doctor because a sore wasn't healing). He now never goes out without his hat and if it is very sunny he creams up and will always seek a place in the shade. Hoping that your Dad will have a similar revelation not least so that you will feel less anxious about him!
Caissa, Ethne Alba, N.P, my sympathies over the difficulty of visiting. It must be very hard, especially as the weeks and months have rolled on.
Dad got what he described as a "kick up the backside" from his consultant who told him that he has years of life still in him, and that he needs to be more active. Dad sounded quite boosted by this.
I said to my mother that she must listen to what the consultant is saying and do less for Dad and let him do more for himself.
And Mum said it wasn't that simple, because myeloma is a blood cancer, and Dad really shouldn't do too much.
At which point I lost it and asked if she really thought that the consultant didn't know what sort of cancer Dad has, or if she thought he did know, but hadn't realised that myeloma is a blood cancer. Was she really suggesting ignoring his advice based on the theory that an oncologist doesn't know about cancer, or at any rate not as much about cancer as Mum does? Dad first saw this consultant almost 6 years ago; the idea that he might not realise what sort of cancer he is treating Dad for is beyond ludicrous.
I haven't liked to mention this, NEQ, but to be honest it sounds more as if your mother might be on the slippery slope. A very good friend of ours was struggling with his wife's dementia, while she was going round telling everyone that she was sure he was losing his marbles, she had so much trouble with him, etc.
The inability to respond to logic sounds very much like my own dear Dowager
I haven't liked to mention this, NEQ, but to be honest it sounds more as if your mother might be on the slippery slope. A very good friend of ours was struggling with his wife's dementia, while she was going round telling everyone that she was sure he was losing his marbles, she had so much trouble with him, etc.
The inability to respond to logic sounds very much like my own dear Dowager
This isn't new, Mrs S. Mum has always been anxious about other people's health. Apparently when I was a baby, and was a butterball of a thing, she took me to the doctor because I wasn't finishing my feeds. The doctor told her she was feeding me so much that I wasn't physically capable of taking in any more. My brother and I were known as "The Tubbies" at school, and my mother was adamant our weight was genetic and outwith her control.
I slimmed down a lot when I hit 18. I had a student part-time job as a hospital cleaner, and was cycling to and from work. Mum hated it. Although I had just dipped down into a "healthy" weight (5ft 5in, 10 stone) she was convinced I was wasting away. She kept telling me that people were horrified by my appearance, that people were contacting her to ask if I was ill, because I looked so dreadful. She was relentless. At one point I wasn't allowed to take anything from the fruit bowl until she had seen me eat a chocolate biscuit first.
Now I look back on photos of me at 18, and I look great. I'm a bit sad that I didn't enjoy being young and pretty and 18, because Mum kept telling me I was ugly. Fortunately University got me away from all that.
Another example, from at least 10 or 15 years ago - Mum was phoning round the family telling everybody that Uncle X had had a stroke and was in hospital. It transpired that Uncle X was in hospital, but he hadn't had a stroke. And that Mum knew this. She explained that she thought that if she told people the reason for the admission, they would think it didn't sound serious, and she didn't want to "mislead" people into thinking Uncle X wasn't seriously ill. So she decided that "stroke" corresponded better to the level of seriousness, and that's what she told people. This made perfect sense to her.
I think this ongoing "your father is very ill" is "just Mum" and the anxiety we are all used to. However, I haven't seen them since early March, just photos my brother has taken from a distance, so it's hard to say.
I'm doing their shopping online, plus buying any cards Mum needs and posting them to her to send, and she's completely on top of that.
(One of the great things about the Ship is that I tend to assume everyone's life is like this, and then I type something up and think, no, Mum's anxiety really does manifest itself in odd ways.)
Another tale from 26 years ago. I had taken the baby Loon for his fortnightly weigh-in at the baby clinic and reported back to Mum that he had been described as being "the perfect weight"
Mum was alarmed and asked what the clinic wanted me to do about it; were they recommending a change in diet? So I repeated that he was "the perfect weight" and Mum said that if he was the "perfect weight" it meant that he had "nothing to fall back on" and that if he was ill, he would slip into "underweight"
She then got herself into a state of anxiety that the clinic would be angry with me if he was still the "perfect weight" at his next weigh-in.
@North East Quine, I hope your outburst gave your mother pause to think and that your dad manages to actually get to do some things he wants to do. The current situation can't help your mum's anxiety. My mother was always rude about how I looked when I was young too. Later she admitted she was envious, and despite telling me I was wearing too much make-up she really liked they way I did it. By then it was fifty years too late and I'd stopped wearing make years before. @NOprophet_NØprofit , a friend of mine said the exact same thing as you about her dad on Tuesday. Sometimes I think you just need to say these things. Not being able to visit easily must be hard too.
Parents can be so weird. My mother, too, obsessed about my perfectly normal teenage and young adult weight, and did it in such a caustic way that I ... well, I can't separate out the effect of her shaming from the other genetic and medical issues in our family, but I look back at my photos then and sigh. It would have been nice to realize I was slim and pretty in the days when that was actually so. And I can't help wondering whether I'd have stayed that way longer if I hadn't already believed I was an obese monster of a person.
On a happier note my AP was cheerful and chirpy (on the phone) last night - had managed to get out during the day and walk around the block ... tonic for the soul. 100th here she comes (still 23 months away ... and counting).
A bit of good news. My sister who is in a care home (long term mental health issues) wrote me a letter! So unusual and the first contact for two months. She is rarely sufficiently compos mentis to do so, hasn’t got paper ( even though I gave her a load last Christmas) and doesn’t normally manage to get anyone to post anything she has managed to write, so this was a huge surprise. She re-used an old envelope, but I don’t know how she got it posted. She mentioned an outing to the cemetery, but since that is the nearest public space to walk in that is not so weird.
Comments
Thing is, your short term memory does deteriorate with age - but you accommodate that. My strategy is to either Do It Now or Write It Down. But if your dad is being deprived of agency the whole time, then he doesn't have the impetus to develop ways of coping.
I'm sorry that you lost your mum and much of your mourning so far will have been experienced in lockdown which must have made things even worse for you.
This could be age. My own Dad has 'moments of confusion' too. His recent UTI and cellulitis created terrible confusion and in the midst of it I listened while his doctor put him through the dementia test, which he passed easily even in the midst of fever confusion. My Dad is 85. So it may just be that there is age decline which results in your Dad looking different to how you have known him. My own Dad always had a keen memory and was very particular in how he did things. Nowadays his 'moments of confusion' leave him looking and sounding old (which is a strange thing to say of a man of 85 but until very recently it was hard to believe he was that age).
These last few months must have been very, very difficult for those who have been shielding. It must have been a lonely and stressful time when the smallest things can be exaggerated or feared as something worse. Let's hope the virus remains sufficiently suppressed that people who have been staying away for so long (albeit for good reason) will soon be able to enjoy a more normal life again.
Actually, in terms of not making sense, that would be Mum and her anxiety. That's been lifelong though. She's often misunderstood something because her anxiety has clouded her thinking.
I just don't know what to say that's helpful, especially as you can't actually get to see him - but I think, judging from your comments about your mother, that he isn't as bad as she thinks. He may still be a little worse when he isn't on the phone to you, but he probably is Not That Bad.
Holding all of you in my heart anyway...
The doctor gave him a test over the phone, but it was stuff like mental arithmetic. There's never been any suggestion that Dad struggles with that - he enjoys sudoku etc. He aced every question until the last one - what day is it, and what's the date?
Every day has been much the same since lockdown, so he struggled to come up with "Wednesday" and then thought it was the 20th July, rather than the 22nd.
Is struggling to remember the day and date in lockdown serious? Because I'm doing that, too!
Dad's really annoyed that Mum didn't speak to him before phoning the doctor. Mum's disappointed that the questions the doctor asked weren't relevant to what she sees as Dad's failing cognitive abilities.
However, the GP is contacting Dad's oncologist - I wonder if he thinks Dad has "chemo brain." I'm rather hoping that might be the case. I think a diagnosis of "memory issues as a side effect of chemo" would be easier than "early stages of dementia"
Mark me as a Fail now.
Mr RoS has slow comprehension and memory problems (long standing, head injury related), complicated by some temporary deafness, making telephone conversations a bit hit or miss. The surgery would not tell me anything, without his permission, so he had to write a letter authorising them to speak to me about any aspect of his health.
If your mother is speaking to the doctor about matters he does not wish her to, I presume he can withdraw permission - either in full, or on a particular aspect of his health.
Would he consider that?
Or would that set the fur flying?
Apparently they also ask you what day comes after Wednesday. Dad doesn't, as far as I aware, have any intellectual slippage at all - it's more of a "where did I leave my glasses?" "have I had the white pills yet?" "is this my first or second glass of water?" type of thing.
RoseofSharon - that would set the fur flying.
I do understand that here in the US those papers have different powers than those of you who live elsewhere. Mom and Dad can't just state that their doctors can't speak with me.
MMSE (Mini Mental State/Status Exam) is the most commonly used screener here. It;s a PDF and brief look online suggests squabbles about it, so not hot-linking, rather putting into "code". I'm reminded of the squabbles over the Rorschach Inkblot Tests. There was a question in some other version which required the person to say "Methodist Episcopalian" (repeat after me), which I raise only because of "Christian unrest" and query why these two denominations and why in that order.
The other screener most often given is the (GCS) Glascow Coma Scale which is after you get a hit to your head and they want to screen for a mTBI (mild traumatic brain injury - no skull fracture, usually negative CT/MRI). The term "concussion" being deprecated, sort of like "nervous breakdown" re emotional concerns.
My interest this week is personal to my father.
My father went by ambulance to hospital earlier this week. Blind man lost in his suite, hallucinating and actually aware that he was doing so once I spoke to him. Thankfully he had his cordless phone in his pocket and answered or would he still be standing with spilled lunch thinking he had been transported to a strange building with silent people shining spotlights? No doubt the Emerg doc gave him these tests. Sounds neurological to me, he was clear the prior day and he captured awareness that his perceptions were unreal when we talked We are, of course, not allowed in the hospital. House staff give us updates. Wondering if he'll make it out, and if we'll see him alive again.
It's been a difficult week. There was a plow wind which knocked out power our cabin, and ~500 seventy foot trees. My wee weather station clocked 130 km/hr on the lee side. https://www.ckom.com/2020/07/15/storm-leaves-cottage-owners-at-madge-lake-with-big-clean-up/
And the best cat ever died 2 days ago.
I pulled out Marcus Aurelius "Meditations" last night, along with Harold Bloom's "Where Shall Wisdom Be Found". I prefer the rhythm of Bloom's take on Job 12:28ff this morning:
Though Aurelius' admonition that life events you don't control are only evil if you allow yourself to be drawn that way into them seems good advice. Must remain stoic and accepting of what's transpiring to support all the others. I'll schedule tears for later.
Yeah, me too. I usually know what day of the week it is (because I'm working from home, and I have a weekly pattern of meetings etc.) but I don't have a regular need to know what the date is, so I always have to look it up. I know it's some time in the second half of July, but not much more than that.
If I had a doctor's appointment, I might or might not know what day it was - depending on whether I was the one checking the calendar, or whether Mrs C said at breakfast "you've got a doctor's appointment this morning". If I went because she said "go to the doctors at 10", then today's date may have never entered my conscious awareness.
It's like if you asked me what the weather was like this morning. If I went outside, I'd know, because I was in it. But I haven't left my house, so your question is really "did I happen to glance out of the window and pay attention to what the weather was", and I never have a reason to do that. I can tell you that the weather wasn't particularly noticeable - there wasn't a big loud thunderstorm or something - but it may or may not have rained, and could be sunny or cloudy, and hot or very hot, and I wouldn't know.
I hope you can get to see your parents soon @North East Quine and see for yourself if there are any causes for concern.
Ah, that's me, and I'm not yet 50. Along with 'why did I come upstairs' and that nasty 'I know I have forgotten something, but that's all I know - I have no idea what it might have been'. Oh, and when the 'thing' comes back, there's no longer the sharp snappy 'aha, *that's* what it was' - more a foggy, sloppy 'hmm, perhaps this is thing I have half-forgotten I had forgotten'.
Good job no-one expects me to be clever anymore
And on the phone, with no warning! He's done extremely well to get just that silly question at the end wrong.
They seem to have the worst outcome just now - Dad is angry that Mum went behind his back, and Mum is upset that the doctor asked easy questions which didn't address what she sees as the problem.
My brother and I are both baffled as to why Mum is assuming "dementia" and won't accept that "chemo brain" affects memory. She is convinced Dad is at the top of a slope, about to slide down into full-blown dementia.
I was not being critical of you or your mother, but even given the notice of the phone call, was he aware of the testing the doctor undertook? That's what I was referring to.
I've been dealing with Mum's anxiety all my life, and so my first thought tends to be that this is just Mum again. Dad sounds fine on the phone, but I know that doesn't mean much.
Also, there have been times when things Mum has said to other people about me have filtered back and I've scarcely recognised myself.
Not sure that NEQ's mother is doing the "preparing" and "hoping bit", just living in a perpetual state of anxiety, which can't be doing her own health much good.
However, he kept asking why he had to go to the dermatologist.
In the past I have reported concerns about my dad’s physical health to a doctor when I was fairly sure his symptoms were more serious than he realized. I also once told my GP that a neighbor further up the road appeared to be entering a manic episode (this was someone I knew had bipolar disorder and had the same GP). He listened to my account of the conversation, thanked me for raising my concerns and said he’d call her in for a general medication review and assess the situation.
Nursing staff are wonderful. He's having memories. Of being a small boy. Stories. Visions.
So, when I called Dad with the info, he was outside in the sun, preparing to fix some screening. No, of course he didn't have a hat or sunscreen on. :rollingmyeyes:
That sounds very similar to my own Dad. It's a bit troubling really isn't it?
Dad got what he described as a "kick up the backside" from his consultant who told him that he has years of life still in him, and that he needs to be more active. Dad sounded quite boosted by this.
I said to my mother that she must listen to what the consultant is saying and do less for Dad and let him do more for himself.
And Mum said it wasn't that simple, because myeloma is a blood cancer, and Dad really shouldn't do too much.
At which point I lost it and asked if she really thought that the consultant didn't know what sort of cancer Dad has, or if she thought he did know, but hadn't realised that myeloma is a blood cancer. Was she really suggesting ignoring his advice based on the theory that an oncologist doesn't know about cancer, or at any rate not as much about cancer as Mum does? Dad first saw this consultant almost 6 years ago; the idea that he might not realise what sort of cancer he is treating Dad for is beyond ludicrous.
I miss the banging-head-off-a-wall emoji.
The inability to respond to logic sounds very much like my own dear Dowager
This isn't new, Mrs S. Mum has always been anxious about other people's health. Apparently when I was a baby, and was a butterball of a thing, she took me to the doctor because I wasn't finishing my feeds. The doctor told her she was feeding me so much that I wasn't physically capable of taking in any more. My brother and I were known as "The Tubbies" at school, and my mother was adamant our weight was genetic and outwith her control.
I slimmed down a lot when I hit 18. I had a student part-time job as a hospital cleaner, and was cycling to and from work. Mum hated it. Although I had just dipped down into a "healthy" weight (5ft 5in, 10 stone) she was convinced I was wasting away. She kept telling me that people were horrified by my appearance, that people were contacting her to ask if I was ill, because I looked so dreadful. She was relentless. At one point I wasn't allowed to take anything from the fruit bowl until she had seen me eat a chocolate biscuit first.
Now I look back on photos of me at 18, and I look great. I'm a bit sad that I didn't enjoy being young and pretty and 18, because Mum kept telling me I was ugly. Fortunately University got me away from all that.
Another example, from at least 10 or 15 years ago - Mum was phoning round the family telling everybody that Uncle X had had a stroke and was in hospital. It transpired that Uncle X was in hospital, but he hadn't had a stroke. And that Mum knew this. She explained that she thought that if she told people the reason for the admission, they would think it didn't sound serious, and she didn't want to "mislead" people into thinking Uncle X wasn't seriously ill. So she decided that "stroke" corresponded better to the level of seriousness, and that's what she told people. This made perfect sense to her.
I think this ongoing "your father is very ill" is "just Mum" and the anxiety we are all used to. However, I haven't seen them since early March, just photos my brother has taken from a distance, so it's hard to say.
I'm doing their shopping online, plus buying any cards Mum needs and posting them to her to send, and she's completely on top of that.
(One of the great things about the Ship is that I tend to assume everyone's life is like this, and then I type something up and think, no, Mum's anxiety really does manifest itself in odd ways.)
Mum was alarmed and asked what the clinic wanted me to do about it; were they recommending a change in diet? So I repeated that he was "the perfect weight" and Mum said that if he was the "perfect weight" it meant that he had "nothing to fall back on" and that if he was ill, he would slip into "underweight"
She then got herself into a state of anxiety that the clinic would be angry with me if he was still the "perfect weight" at his next weigh-in.
@NOprophet_NØprofit , a friend of mine said the exact same thing as you about her dad on Tuesday. Sometimes I think you just need to say these things. Not being able to visit easily must be hard too.