Who are you?

By Don Tackett

Yesterday’s visit was the hardest yet.  She looked at me and grinned and asked “Are you Donald Ray?”  Then she said, “Give me a hug.”  It wasn’t but a minute later she repeated her question and her request for a hug.  I told her we had just hugged and she replied, “I don’t remember.”

            Mom has been in a nursing home for eighteen months now.  At first, the loss of memory was not apparent to her.  My wife and I noticed it on one of our visits, when she called the name of her great grandson Michael instead of Jesse.  Michael was the name of her last born grandson.  The first time she misnamed him, I thought she caught her mistake, but she called him Michael for the whole visit.  After we left, my wife and I discussed our concerns about this event and decided to monitor her.  I talked to my sister about mom and she also had noticed a decline in her memory.

            The next month, December, found us in the hospital with mom.  She was complaining about her heart.  The doctors could find nothing physically wrong and suggested we have her checked out by a psychologist.  Her mental state had gotten worse, but she was still able to pass the verbal test given by the psychologist to determine dementia.  She was released from the hospital but continued to decline mentally.  I had to start giving her medicine to her because she would forget she had taken it and would take it again.  On one occasion she left the burner on the stove on all day.  I turned off the breaker to the stove and told her it had quit working, which satisfied her for a while.  Of course this meant having to bring meals to her each day.  My sister brought her breakfast, and I would bring her lunch with enough left over for supper.  While there, I would dispense her medicine to her and make certain she took it.  She always wanted milk to drink which sounds simple enough, but I had to start bringing that to her daily because she would drink all she had in the refrigerator.  I asked her why she drank so much milk and she said her mom always told her to drink all her milk.

            Mom loved bananas, and I made the mistake of taking her a bunch one day while getting her lunch.  The next day I noticed there were no bananas.  She had eaten them all.  Eventually we had to clean out the refrigerator and cupboards of all food because she was always trying to fix something to eat, even after having just eaten.

            The following March mom called my sister complaining she wasn’t feeling well.  My sister had just been released from the hospital and couldn’t go after mom so she told her to call 911.  After getting the 911 operator mom didn’t remember where she lived and asked the operator to call her daughter for directions.  Once in the hospital it was obvious mom couldn’t go back home and the doctor placed her in a nursing home.

            The past eighteen months have been touch and go for mom, some days better than others.  She wears a bracelet on her ankle that sounds an alarm when she tries to “escape.”  Even though I know it will happen, I am dreading the day when she will ask, “Who are you?”

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