Telephonicus umbilicus
By MP on Sunday 13 August 2006, 18:37 - Journal - Permalink
It's Sunday and I couldn't leave it any longer. I had to come over and visit
mum and dad.
The phone has been dancing to my dad's fingers all week. It's the one device he
has not forgotten how to operate. Regular readers might be familiar with the
run of our phone conversations:
Dad: Ah, Mike. It's, um, dad here.
Me: Hi, dad. How's it going?
Dad: Mike, are you coming over today?
Me: I wasn't planning to.
Dad: Oh. Well, it's not that we need you, or anything. I was just wondering,
you know, if...
Me: Yeah. I'll probably be over...etc.
At their peak, dad's calls were arriving more than ten times a day. That was perhaps a month or two ago. They drove me nearly insane at times. I would finish The Standard Conversation (see above), press the off button, put the phone down on my desk, look back at my screen to find my place, and the phone would ring again. It would be dad, initiating The Standard Conversation all over again. At first I took a dispassionate analytical approach. I never mentioned previous calls - I wanted to see just how bad dad's memory had become. It was looking pretty bad. I spoke to Greg about it and found out he was also smitten with these denial of service attacks. All I could imagine was my dad, having just finished one call, finding himself standing beside the phone wondering what did I come over here for? Ah, yes! I need to call Mike/Greg.
When I finally did lose patience, I'd tell dad that he'd called me perhaps only five minutes earlier. Then he'd act as if he half-remembered, apologise, say something like, 'I wasn't sure if I did or I didn't,' and explain that his memory was not what it used to be. There was not much else either of us could say.
Recently, the mean time between dad's calls seems to have increased. I've even started to wonder whether the Aricept is actually working, for I think I may also detect a new chirpiness in dad's manner and greater fluency in his speech.
Today, when I arrived, I was pleased to see them both sitting out on the deck, rather than huddled inside the house. Dad was full of beans. He told me about the 'poor old blokes' at the day care centre (most of whom are younger than he is).
'There was this one poor old blighter who was talking to his lunch,' he said. 'I felt sorry for him so I sat next to him.'
I am now quite sure dad is better since starting the Aricept. I am not so sure about mum. She may be a bit less withdrawn, but her speech does not seem to be any better. When I report her speech I usually groom it a little to represent what she is trying to say rather than what actually comes out of her mouth. Today, when I checked the cupboards to see how well stocked they were, I mentioned that there were rather a lot of biscuits on the shelves.
'Well, it's only fiddin minute with it,' is what my mother said. This had me stumped. I took Deb Peterson's advice and interpreted this as a fragment of poetry - but while I admire its rhythm, the meaning remains lost.
She's hidden her handbag somewhere new - and forgotten where. I know all the usual hiding places, but after a failed search of the house we now just have to wait until it disinters itself. Another bad sign: on the desk I found the glass surround for a clock, but not the clock that fits into it. Neither mum nor dad know anything about it. If we cannot reassemble it, this will become just another perfectly good household item turned to junk.
On the plus side: I was able to get my parents' agreement to move a coffee table away from the centre of the lounge. This table has been tripped over at least twice, and presents a constant danger. I never thought I'd be able to get away with a rearrangement of the furniture, so I am now keeping my fingers crossed that this change doesn't get reversed when I leave tonight.
Comments
I like Deb's advice to consider your Mom's speech poetry...appeals to the poet in me. I am reminded, though, that often poetry, even good poetry, is as dense as your mother's muddled speech. If it's good poetry, this is part of it's ability to enchant.
At any rate, my purpose in coming over here is to thank you, once again, for your generous comment to my "'tragic' funk" post. I understand what you're saying about words often being semantically dense (rather like poetry and your mother's speech). I also know that in order to understand one another, we have to agree on meanings and, as well, I think there are times when we use words before we think carefully about this agreement, or we use them in sympathy with what we think is someone else's experience when such may not be the case. This is the lesson I'm learning as a result of the comments that are collecting on my "tragic" post. You are the second commenter to say that you don't consider your experience with your parents, or their own experience, tragic. Two for two. I'm amazed. Maybe "tragic" has become one of those words that we thoughtlessly apply to dementia when, in fact, few people truly feel their experiences with their loved ones' dementia are a tragedy.
So I'm a "cheerleader" huh! I'm grinning! You have an uncanny ability to perceive qualities in me that are apparent to no one else, Mike. Maybe distance makes the "eyes" grow sharper! Thank you once again!
Quick question: Is it possible to make paragraphs in this commenting facility? If so, what's the technique?
Never mind, I figured it out!
Hi Mike--I've been writing a post in my head entitled: "The Unfinished" but I think you've already written it here. Sometimes I think our situations are extra poignant because we are people who love narrative, who want to find the patterns in it, who want to find the wholeness in it. And we have to face the unfinished whenever we spend time or talk to our parents now. Unfinished thoughts, unfinished acts--how hard it is to accept all that. And when the poetry starts sounding like "Finnegan's Wake"--well...
I noticed my mother improved markedly when she started Namenda--she couldn't take Aricept because of the stomach troubles. Maybe if your mother isn't responding to Aricept the doc might try Namenda? Just to be nosy--do your folks have prescription coverage? I ask because my mother did not until "The Decider" put a new prescription plan in place this year. Actually it's been beneficial for her--her other medicine, Zyprexa, used to cost almost $300 per month! And I couldn't get it through a Canadian drugstore, either (as I did her asthma med.).
My mother has two ritual searches: her rosary beads and her hair comb. She has at least three of each, and when we finally find them they are usually all together. It's amazing how much of our lives are consumed by this.
I was going to suggest Namenda - it didn't work for my mother as well as the Aricept did, but it might work for yours.
Searching - yeah, my favorite sport. We couldn't find her slippers the other day until I stood and looked at her bed. Next to it, doubling as a bedstand as it has for years, is a two drawer filing cabinet. So I opened the top drawer and there were the slippers. The "hiding stuff" was one of our first signs that something was wrong.