but I do have a FFO:
Vague but troubling medical diagnoses in someone you care about who is almost 1000 miles from you can **** off.
Someone I care about very much - someone who is over the age of 60 and therefore entering into the "fear zone" (well, for me at least) for Alzheimers (not that there is any history of it in this person's family) had several episodes today of transient memory loss - memory lapses.
This person was taken to the emergency room and, I am told, all the "bad" things (with the possible exception of TIA) ruled out. I don't know what all the "bad" things could have been; the person reporting this to me purposely was keeping me in the dark, I think (but of course: I've been Googling and Ask-dot-com-ing for the past hour and a half).
I know that Alzheimer's can't totally, 100% be ruled out until after the person has died. And the memory lapses involved here were minor (the person forgetting they had said things, or forgetting that the mail had come) and could be caused by dehydration, or some kind of funky atypical migrainaceous thing, or the fact that the person worked out in the hot sun for an hour or more (on a ladder, with their arms above their head). Or that they had not very long ago gotten over a bad respiratory infection.
I spoke to the person this evening, and she seemed mostly ok...there were a couple times when she repeated herself 10 minutes or so after having said something, like "The doctor told me to start taking half an aspirin just in case it was a TIA." I gently remarked that she had said that before...and now *I* can't remember if that occasional repetition was typical or atypical of this person - was I just noticing it because I was freaked out?
She said that she passed all the neurological/cognitive tests - except the four-words-one, she could only remember three of the words (the three related ones). But then - she repeated the four words correctly to me (and said specifically why she didn't remember the fourth at the time - that it was something totally incongruous to the other three. She also said the doctor didn't seem concerned that she could only repeat three of the four). She also remembered lots of other stuff from the past several days, even minor crap, like that her cat had had a hairball.
So I don't know.
I'm telling myself that it has to be something minor...I mean, intellectually telling myself that. But the little ball of anxiety that always lives somewhere in the pit of my stomach is starting to stretch and churn and prepare itself to keep me awake all night.
I am not ready for this. I am not ready to deal with someone I love very much being brought down by Alzheimer's (if that's where this is going, and of course my anxiety-beast goes to the worst possible place first).
the whole issue with the air conditioner looks totally minor in the face of this. I hate that - it seems like some dumb little thing happens and I get all complainey about it, and then it gets resolved, but some big bad thing happens. It's not my worldview to believe this, but at times it almost feels like the big bad thing is "punishment" for the fact that I complained about the little crap.
Gah. I'm tired, and borderline freaked out, and I'm not making sense.
But I'm really scared by this.
Friday, June 08, 2007
thought I wouldn't have one...
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1 comment:
That sucks, Ricki. I know it's kind of disturbing but it's really hard to tell. My late great-aunt, who never married and was like a grandmother to me after both of mine passed on, had memory problems that weren't related to Alzheimer's. I think it was actually that she had really high blood pressure and her kidneys were failing.
My mom (who lived with her before she married my dad) was very close to her and it was stressful looking after her. But we prayed a lot and tried to keep a sense of humor about it. We still talk about this one story: Before we really knew there were memory problems we had adopted a cat to keep her company. The cat's name was Toscha. But Aunt El (short for Eleanor) absolutely could not remember her name. So she decided to call her Nora (eponymous?). We just about fell on the floor laughing whenever someone came over and talked to her about her cat, b/c Aunt El would say, "Her name's Nora. It used to be Toscha, but it was too hard for me to remember." Every time! And Nora's still around and lives with my parents.
Hang in there. A lot of people I know are dealing with some serious crosses right now and it's tough feeling unable to do anything for them but entrust them to the Lord (and carry on). I'll keep you & your loved one in my prayers. :)
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