dementia

More Things I have Learned

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After a sleepless night and an early rising at 5:30 am I begin to doubt my great idea of buying a new bed so we could sleep better. The last couple of nights have been a build up to last night’s insomnia.

After that experience I notice a couple of things. We are both on edge. She is upset that I am angry that she could not sleep and wants to offer an explanation. I am only-one-cup-of-coffee cranky and unwilling to accept any explanation made up out of whole cloth. As the day continues we will ease up and move on as we recognize that we both are very tired.

Most nights the big new bed has made a huge difference in our sleep. Lately I have been letting her sleep in a bit because it seemed to me that she was very tired in the morning. The LOUD AND ANNOYING clock did not wake her up. I think that will change.

I Have Learned

  • Kindness returns after 2 mugs of black coffee
  • Cheeriness requires more coffee
  • Grumpy can last all day if you allow it to.
  • Maybe listen to the explanation while getting more coffee
  • Get her to take 7am meds and get breakfast
  • If she wants to make Christmas cookies, let her.
  • Her conversations will wander all over the place when she has slept poorly.

Carpe Diem.

Organizational Techniques

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This is such a good story I am unsure where to start. Had I been more alert to how Cheryl treated this book I could have foreseen the difficulties that eventually came to her and became much of my daily life. But seeing how she treats it now is unimportant and I flatter myself into believing I could helped her if I had been paying careful attention at the beginning.

About three years ago – certainly prepandemic – Cheryl was struggling with her birthday card organizational techniques. She had several old books of names. One of these was left to her when her mother had passed from this life to the next. When a new month was approaching she would collect these to her in her office in the evening to make a list of folks whose birthday was coming to buy cards.

When her mom was still alive she would take Elaine to the Dollar Store to buy cards to send out. She took this over in time for her mother and eventually kept it up after Elaine passed away. She did this, of course, in addition to her own birthday card list. So, one evening I noticed she had several old handwritten books that she was looking through to discover whose birthdays were coming next month.

She had entered much of this same information into an Access database that she had created during her working career to help her and her mom keep track of things in an organized and businesslike manner. Cheryl was an extremely organized business woman. The most disheartening thing for me to watch as this disease progresses is her loss of organization and control. If the disease was merely physical it would, I think, be easier to deal with.

Nevertheless I put on my engineering hat to help with different methods to enhance and at the same time add ease to the organization of the birthday cards. In a second career as a high school science teacher which never completely panned out, I discovered a wonderful organizational tool that teachers use and might very well be adaptable to Cheryl’s needs. Teachers use a weekly planner to help with organizational tasks and as I discovered with my small experience, to keep track of how far behind you are with the course material. Usually these are dated with the year but at Staples I found a wonderful version that in addition to having only two days per page was lined and printed in a 8.5 by 11 format had no year printed. It could be a yearly calendar of birthdays, anniversaries and other information without concern for the year or day of the week.

The doomsday algorithm would give you the day of the week. Look it up. It is pretty neat.

She had been struggling with organizing the birthday cards. I suggested she use this yearly planner. In the store, she agreed that it could be a useful tool to organize the activity. I was proud of myself for finding such an elegant solution to her dilemma. Being the ever helpful hubby I produced from her Access data a list that I could put into Avery’s online printing tool and produce the information for the dates that were known. New information would come along with use and could be added by hand as the years evolved.

Almost a good idea but my idea therefore NIMBY and NIH reared their ugly heads in unison. And I, not to be defeated, began to defend my method to a woman who spent her working career in computer databases and systems analysis, as she, slowly crept into memory loss, confusion and dementia. What a hoot! I completely and totally missed the AHA when it went by about two years ago.

How to help without helping? I continued for many months to reconsider and think about how to make the Big Black Book useful to her. In her old multi-book system she looked at a single page to discover who had a birthday that month. An index my engineering mind shouted at me. You forgot to make an index. I thought about that for awhile and realized that the planner was organized by month, not day-of-the-week, not year, only day of the month mattered. It was self indexing. I was at a loss as to how to fix her thoughts.

I quit concerning myself with instructing her on how to use it. I just rolled with her confusion.

Over time the preoccupation with getting out the birthday cards dissipated. Other thoughts of how to help her organize it left me. I became an observer. She always tells me, if I don’t do it myself I can’t improve. She is right. I am merely her aide.

Carpe Diem.

Order, Routine and Chaos

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I have heard said that a police officer’s career is days of pure boredom punctuated with fifteen minutes of shear terror. As a caregiver to one with a chronic disease that tends toward dementia, the experience is similar.

This is a long story and I am not a hero to Cheryl. I let her down.

I lost it

It is August 26, 2022. Yesterday was a good day. At least it began that way. Cheryl slept a little later. I helped her get up at about 8:30 am.

Just a regular day was beginning. She had exercise class at noon. We came home to a leftover pizza lunch as was the plan.

She had been telling me about getting a new hanging plant at Pipkin’s which is a place that neighbor Jane talks about often. She also told me she needed new socks. I proposed we go do a little shopping in the afternoon and she agreed.

A trip to J. C. Penney ensued and we returned home via Pipkin’s garden store on Cooper Rd. As we pulled into the parking lot at home my pocket began sounding the alarm for her 4PM meds. She had been telling me that she was tired and wanted to lay down. I suggested she take her meds and rest for a bit.

There are too many distractions for a parkie in our condo-minimum. Cheryl first needs to check for messages on the phone (routine). These days only Hoxworth blood center leaves messages. Sometimes one of the Scam Likely folks will make a mistake and tell me how to save money with Visa, Discover and MasterCard or how to get better Medicare coverage. I am uninterested but Cheryl is worried someone might need her. The meds are ignored while messages are checked. The phone and message retrieval is an overwhelming puzzle to her. She winds up looking at her computer which is off. This leads her to notice the pile of old birthday and note cards on her desk from times past when she was organizing them. She remembers little of this so they are a new discovery. I reminder of her meds from the other room.

As I look back at this little episode I realize that it occurs often when we are home in the afternoon. She acknowledges the alarm on her phone and ignores the meds as she goes back to whatever distraction she has selected (order). I remind her to take her meds and hang out until I see her do it. She comes into the kitchen in response to my entreaty to take her meds. With that done I retrieved two frozen pork chops from the freezer to thaw for dinner. I explained that I intended to make pork chops, some roasted potatoes and broccoli for dinner. Perhaps I would make some tomato chopped salad also. She agreed that would be good and maybe we could eat on the porch.

I reminded her that she had wanted to lay down for a bit and retreated to the porch to read my book for awhile and let the chops thaw. I told Alexa to set a reminder for 5PM and continued with the adventures of Detective Sergeant McAvoy.

Alexa reminded me at five o’clock to get up out of the chair and prepare dinner. Coming in I heard Cheryl’s phone alarm reminding her to take her 5PM meds which is a blood pressure medication. When I entered the kitchen I saw that she had emptied the silverware drawer onto the counter and had several glasses of water set up on the other end of the counter. I wrongfully admonished her for getting at the silverware out and asked why she had done that. As she launched into her to meaningless explanation I should have calmed down and accepted it but I did not. I lost it which generated some rage in both of us. (chaos). I put the silverware drawer back together and began to prepare dinner.

She asked what she could do to help and I said that she could set the table outside on the porch. I reminded her that she wanted to sit out on the porch. She responded okay and went off to do something else. Since I was chopping potatoes and breading pork chops I quit paying attention to her while I was doing that. I realized eventually that she was going to set the table in the dining area and when I asked about that she told me that she would set both tables. She insisted that we would need more room for the kids. I must have been smoldering in the background because I flared up again.

The kids are not coming. No kids live with us. I said with louder than normal anxiety in my voice. And besides I only cooked enough for you and me. I put out place mats and plates and silverware and asked her to please sit down. The dinner was ready to come out of the oven and did she want water or a coke with dinner.

I busied myself with getting the food out of the oven and onto serving plates and bowls. When I started putting things onto the table she had wandered off to look on the back porch. She said David was here and I replied that he was not with more volume than was needed. We eventually sat down to the inside table. She served herself ½ a pork chop, some potatoes and broccoli. After she had put some gravy on her plate she started to get up holding the gravy boat. I took it from her and asked where she was going again. She was going to take some gravy to the kids. And I insisted that there were no extra people, kids or otherwise.

She became angry with me and left to get help. I sat for a minute or so and listened for the outside door to slam. It did not so I went looking for her. She had gone upstairs in the front hallway and I think became confused when she did not recognize the upstairs of our old house. I coaxed her down without her falling face first down the steps and suggested we go to the ice cream parlor for dessert. We ate dinner and I cleaned up the dishes.

Aglamesis’s for ice cream was a big hit. There were several little people there as always making swift work of their ice cream cones. She had chocolate chip and I had a two-fer dutch chocolate with choclate sauce and nuts and whipped cream. (I know but it was great.)

We went home and TV for a bit. And later as she became tired she was still agitated and worried about David. She kept looking for David. I suggested that we call David on the phone and we did. I did not give David any preamble but I did explain to him with Cheryl sitting there that she was concerned about his well-being. He talked to her for a bit and assured her that all was well.

After we hung up she said, “David is staying with David and Melissa? Well I guess they have plenty of room.”

Today that is all gone past but she did express a slight confusion about David staying with David and Melissa. Somewhere in the back of her mind was a mindfulness of her confusion and to her it was/is scary.

Sometimes it is very hard for the care partner to remain calm. I am still learning this.

Carpe Diem (even if you do not want to seize it.)

How Big are You

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Author and futurist Robert Anton Wilson on the size of a person:

“You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you.”

Source: Nature’s God

— from James Clear’s email

This appeared from James Clear in his email newsletter.

It spoke to me. Deeply.

I do feel small when I allow Cheryl’s disease to become her. It boils over into anger and guilt. I forget often that she is not her disease.

She has been getting physical therapy to help her with movements like getting out of a chair. Sit to Stand is the notation on the PT’s notes. This motion is natural to non-PD people. One does not even think about the mechanics of it. Cheryl has to think and remember the sequence of moves. Depending on the time of day and how she is feeling, thinking and memory are difficult. So she simply cannot remember how to get out of a chair.

When she has fallen and when she falls it is always backwards. I encourage her to lean forward at her waist and push off the chair as the PT told her. Nose over toes is the mantra. But in view of anything, walker, table, person, nearby grab bar or whatever grip, grab and pull easily win over N-O-T. I encourage by telling her where to put her hands and how to position her body. She responds with don’t-tell-me-what-to-do anger. I respond in kind and then feel bad because I was to her unkind.

I love her dearly (big). I am annoyed with her disease (small) and I allow it to be her (smaller).

My personal reason for writing this is to hold that idea up in the light and discern how to be better next time. I am grateful for all the next times even though anger anxiety and anxiousness might creep back in. It is hard work and I am not that good at it.

Time to meditate and ponder with deep sagacity.

Carpe Diem

An August Evening

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Rainy days in August have produced sundowner’s confusion and dementia. On this particular day it seems a bit worse.

Cheryl has had a particularly busy week. Two physical therapy visits and an exercise class happened this week. On Monday evening our HOA board had a meeting to discuss maintenance schedules and what new projects we could take on with the money on hand. Jane came across the hall and sat with Cheryl on our back porch while I attended. (Jane is a wonderful neighbor.)

On anything goes pizza Tuesday we had dinner with our neighbor Jane as usual and in addition our new upstairs neighbor Joe joined us. Joe moved into the front condo over the garage spaces. Much of getting to know you conversation happened. Cheryl knew of a woman which she attended high school with who had the same last name. Her name was Kathy. As it turned out she was Joe’s younger sister. Jane’s husband used to play in several bands when he was still alive many years ago and Joe’s last name was familiar to her also. As the story developed it became apparent that her husband John had played in a band with Joe’s father.

It was a great getting-to-know-the-neighbor conversation. There were lots of memories for Joe and from Jane and Cheryl. When we got home Cheryl was exhausted.

Wednesday, I had arranged for my cousin-in-law, Linda, to come and take Cheryl to her physical therapy appointment. I went to visit the lab of a local community college program that I am still involved with. That facility is twenty minutes or so down the highway and I was gone for about two hours. We later met back up in a local diner for lunch.

Thursday it was my intention to attend a exercise-for-care-partners class at Parkinson Community Fitness after Cheryl’s twelve pm exercise class. I had previously arranged for my daughter to pick up her mom so that Cheryl would not have to stay. I found out my class was canceled at the last minute so when Anna showed up we all went to lunch. Our grandson Max was with his mom and he showed off his new laptop he purchased for college. He will start in a couple weeks.

I had hoped to ride my bike for a bit so Anna and Max remained with Cheryl. Alas, the weather did not cooperate. As I entered our condo Anna was helping her mom sort coins. These had been residing on the dining room table for several days but the project was several weeks old. Cheryl found them back in her office a few days ago. Cheryl told her daughter that when they were finished they would give the coins to her dad. She used to help her dad roll coins from his gas station business many years ago.

Max was frustrated with his new laptop. The camera no longer worked. What ensued afterward was a chat via the internet with some Microsoft expert and ultimately a complete reload of the operating system. That seemed extreme to me but I am an old retired electrical guy whose been fooling around with systems, software and computers for fifty years or so. We are living in a new age now. Ultimately it was discovered that Lenovo had placed a privacy slider to cover the camera on the upper edge of the case. It was a mechanical failure or an operational one depending on who is characterizing the action.

On Friday I was still hoping to ride my bike and the weather was still not cooperating. Cindy came anyway And I went to get a haircut and run a few other errands. I returned about an hour later.

This whole week was generally gray and overcast. It was not gloomy like the wintertime but gray and rainy nevertheless. It is still rainy and poopy outside as I write this.

The rest of the day was filled with visions and stories of her family. She was looking for Scott. Later in the evening she told me a story about Easter eggs, coloring them and Mavis. She eventually called our daughter-in-law Mavis to ask about what her objection was to coloring Easter eggs.

Earlier in the evening she asked, “Where is Ken?” I told her that Ken was probably home but I was not sure. She should call him and talk to him. She did not take that suggestion.

It was a frustrating afternoon and evening for me. Later I realized after she had exhausted herself with a very busy sundowner episode that for the first time this week only I was here with her and she could relax and let all that out.

As she laid in the bed she asked me to make sure the kids all got home okay. This morning she slept until 10 am.

Carpe Diem.

Old Married Couple

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It occurs to me that old married couples have heard each other’s stories many times. Idle pleasantries between acquaintances and friends usually lead into a story about some past experience. It is harder to do with old married couples. They have heard the stories. Often they both participated. Aging and PD memory loss have changed our conversation about trips, children, childhood, food, children’s sports, many things.

I am a pretender often. She may forget who I am as she is talking. She may forget I was there; an hour ago, a week ago, a decade ago. I might forget I was there a decade ago. She wants to remind me of someone else from her childhood, someone I should know.

I work on my small talk with her because she will find a story from her childhood and it is calming to her to tell me the story.

As I think past all of that and how I can help and respond to Cheryl I still worry when she says to me, ” I’m ready to go home now.” She does this near bed time.

Lately she seems to merely mean that she is tired and wants to go to bed and rest.

Carpe Diem.

Nighttime Conversations

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She was still awake when I came to bed after reading for awhile. This conversation ensued.

C. – Dan is that you?

me – No it is me Paul.

C. – Oh. You’re here now?

me – Yes. Is that okay?

C. – Where are Jan and the rest of the kids?

me – Gone now I guess. They must have gone home.

C. – Okay. Are you staying here?

me. – Yes. Try to get some sleep. I’ll stay here with you.

In the morning as I got her awake. I had checked on her a few times earlier but at quarter ’til ten I gently urged her awake. She said, “There were a lot of people around here last night.” I replied, “Who did you see?” She replied, ” I didn’t see anybody but I could hear them.”

When she sees people they are very real to her. Before going to bed we had tried to play Scrabble for a bit. Scrabble was her favorite game for many years. We had not played it for about a year and a half. I thought I made a cool discovery. I tripped over a Merriam website called scrabble.merriam.com that helps to find words with certain letters at the beginning, end or containing them. I told her about it and showed her how to search on the website look up page on the laptop. It was too much for her.

She became tired and put on pajamas and got ready for bed. As i helped her take her bedtime meds, she asked me something about her sister Jan. She wanted to save some information for her about the upcoming Sunflower Rev it up for Parkinson’s fund raiser. She then asked me for Jan’s phone number.

It is hard for me to get a grip on conversations like this. I start first by asking if she knows where Jan is. Sometimes she remembers Jan is deceased. When she remembers this I tell her to merely close her eyes and talk to her. This time however she did not remember that Jan was no longer here. I reminded her that Jan was in heaven to which she replied, “Yes, she is talking to mom about it. Do you think you can find a number?” I told her I would look for it in the morning.

It is morning and she has not asked me for the telephone number yet. But there were a lot of people here last night in her head.

Carpe Diem.

She lied to the Therapist

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But did she lie on purpose or did she merely confuse real actions with thinking about them? Dementia and memory issues interfere with answering simple questions.

The physical therapist asked her about doing the same exercises at home when she was not seeing the therapist. Oh yes she replied, ” Every day.” This was probably an hour after her meds and she moves pretty well. Talking to her is much like a regular conversation. The mistruth just rolled off her tongue. In her head, she had done the exercises.

For a statement to be a lie it must have the added ingredient of intent. One must intend to mislead. Cheryl has no such intent. Her intent was to please. Eventually with my urging she will practice some of the exercises.

Switching from a siting position to a standing position is a struggle for her. At physical therapy Morgan and Stephanie practice this with her. She struggles to remember the sequence of small moves. We will keep practicing at home. I wonder if she will eventually will forget how to feed herself. I wonder if her body will no longer sense hunger.

Cheryl has lots of stories. Many of these stories are embellished memories. We all have some of these. Many of these stories are explanations of motive. Many of these stories are to please the listener. None of the stories are intentional lies.

Scooch forward in the chair, Heels behind your knees, Lean forward from your waist (nose over toes), push off the chair with your hands, straighten your legs — grab the walker on the way up. Practice.

Carpe Diem.

Apathy and Living

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Has she apathy? As we move forward it seems to me that she cares less about day to day activities. She seems to recede into her own thoughts but not as a prevailing occupation. I think of it as apathy-not-quite. When she gets in this mode it’s often temporary.  She is tired from some activity.

Specifically activities like taking a shower,  getting cleaned up,   physical therapy sessions or exercise classes are obviously tiring for a PD sufferer. Something as easy as thinking about what is next seems to tire her out also. It like a temporary apathy.  Procrastination?

It starts with, ” I don’t think I can go to… exercise class, church, physical therapy…” Admittedly it takes a lot for anyone to be motivated to exercise. It was not a big part of our lives when we were younger. Neither of us were sports buffs. My main sport riding my bike. There is a solitude to doing that which I am unwilling to give up or share. As her care partner, it is frustrating for me that she cannot observe how much she is helped by exercise and her PT sessions. She seems to not remember. It seems like she is going merely because I am taking her there.

When Cheryl gets in this mode (mood?), I turn the corner to something else. I am resistant to letting her go on and isolate herself in her little office area thinking, punding and organizing. I take her out. Anywhere works as long as it is out of our condo.

Yesterday I took her one of our local county parks that we have not visited for a long time. Afterward we went for ice cream at a nearby Dairy Queen. I had planned to make dinner at home but she suggested we find barbecue somewhere. This being an odd suggestion because it seems to upset her stomach often and she says never again later in the evening. We did not find the barbecue place to be amenable to folks with mobility issues so we landed at one of our old favorites and ordered something different than we usually get so the newness was preserved. On the way home she thanked me for taking her to Lake Erie and she told me a story about when she was very young.

In the early days of her father running his own gas station which was a life long dream of his, he rarely took any vacation time. It seems one of his friends had a vacation cabin up near Lake Erie and not far from Port Clinton. There is a park nearby called East Harbor State Park. Our walk by the shore of a much smaller lake in the park much closer than Lake Erie must have taken her mentally back to her childhood and a very fond memory. We visited the same area a few years ago and visited East Harbor. She talked at length about the trip with her mom and dad. She thanked me for getting her there and back in the same day.

I started this writing and contemplating apathy, but maybe it’s projective (mine) apathy? Or predictive apathy? Or apathy is the wrong word? (indifference? passivity?) Or is it poor sleeping patterns? This morning she got up at quarter til ten which means that she was in bed for about eleven hours. She awakened this morning from the same position she fell into when she got in bed. On the previous evening she went to bed very late after midnight and slept very little. (As a result I slept little also.)

Is apathy and memory related? I wonder about ideas like this. Perhaps she cannot remember that she seemed to enjoy herself the last time we went there? Wherever there is.

When I finally teased Cheryl awake this morning, she opened her eyes and asked, “Is Mary Pat here?” An amusing opening question about the day. I smiled and told her, ” No Mary Pat is not here. I think you were dreaming about her.” I have no idea where the Mary Pat (a childhood and current) friend thought came from but she has talked to her a couple times over the past few weeks.

I encourage her to talk to her friends when she gets excited about some memory or misconceived thought. Many of them have had strange conversations with her about things. I used to be embarrassed for her and, at first, discouraged these phone calls which she often decides to do later in the evening. But as I thought about it I decided that it was not my place to absorb or accept or become embarrassed for her. Her friends know her state of mind. They are wonderful people and she is blessed to have them as life long friends.

Focus, cognitive abilities, caring, likes and dislikes are all related to memory issues. Staying active no matter how small that activity is helps.

Carpe Diem.

Are Birthday Cards Gone?

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Anna was looking for ideas about what to get her mom for her birthday in May of 2022. I suggested a box of blank cards to send for any reason. Cheryl has always kept greeting cards that are sent through the mail for fund raising purposes from various religious and chronic illness organizations. Some would be sent to her mom when Elaine was still alive. Some of these are still in residence in Cheryl’s office.

There is a small green box shaped like an old country mailbox near the phone in which these cards used to reside. They are no longer there but are spread here and there amongst other paper and chaff in her office. I had hoped that Anna’s present would take up residence in the mail box topped box but that did not happen.

In mid-April of 2022, I suggested that she should make a list of the May birthdays and we would make a trip to the store to get some cards to send. The idea of making a list is hers. She readily agrees with this idea but as her Parkinson took hold of her cognitive centers she is unable to do this.

A few months back her engineer husband suggested that rather than a list she should write each name on a post-it note and as she selected cards in the store, she could put the post-it note inside and she would know who the card was for. Later when she wrote the card and addressed the envelope she could note what date she wanted to mail it and stick it to the front when she sealed the envelope. That solution met resistance because of the NIH factor. (not invented here) But over time she adapted it to her way and used it for awhile.

In April I helped her make a stack of post-it notes with names and we went to the store for cards. Few of those cards were ever mailed to anyone.

In May I waited to see if there would be a panic mailing of cards. May came and went.

Our daughter-in-law Mavis’s birthday is the 1st of May. Hers was the only May birthday card sent. How do I know? In a previous month there was panic as Cheryl realized she had forgotten where she had put the stamps. I now keep track of the stamps. I often have written about her punding. Sometimes she will pund stuff into obscure places. We all do this – not punding – but set things down in obscure places. With PD it is merely harder to find out where it was parked. The stamps turned back up a week or so later after I had bought a new roll.

Cheryl’s birthday is in May also and her brothers and sisters often gather for a “sibs” dinner to celebrate such an event. These pictures are from that gathering at Gabbey’s cafe.

The birthday cards acknowledgement of the family birthdays seems to have been forgotten. It is probably another nuance to he loss of sense of time, calendar, day, week. Our son Scott’s birthday is the 6th of June. We were at our daughter Anna’s house on his birthday. Anna asked her mom whose birthday was today. Cheryl looked at her with a confused look.

I felt sad about several things. I have been writing significant events on a white board that I put on the table each morning so that Cheryl knows what is happening this day. I have not been writing down birthdays. She forgot Scott’s birthday. Of the few cards that I think she should send we forgot to send one to our son. A few other sad thoughts drifted through my head. But most of all I realized that she had lost the birthday card duty. She had forgotten it. This is a long time thing that she did for our family and her mother while Elaine was alive. This is a longtime activity for her. Her short term memory has been off or fading for sometime. I had gotten used to the fact that it is necessary for me to remind her of events constantly. (It is annoying but over time one gets used to it.)

Christmas, birthday, invitation, funeral cards are all gone. An actual paper card with a USPS stamp is how Cheryl learned to acknowledge things. She never adopted Facebook or any other social media platform for those.

Parkinson is a series of small setbacks. Sometimes it is so gradual it merely seems like life going by. It is easy to attribute all behavior changes to Parkinson, after all, he entered our lives about a dozen years ago and has made dramatic changes to how we now do things. Lot’s of older folks develop an apathy for life. They do not need Parkinson’s disease to help them. It is a kind of disinterest in life. Doctor’s have recently discovered this. Geriatric doctors ask specific questions about it when visited by their patients.

This topic about the birthday cards occurred to me in early May when no panic mailing of birthday cards or frantic searching of the black book or of the old address books that we had in our old house or her mom’s address book. It was a sudden occurrence in her behavior.

Could I be watching apathy creep out from behind the curtain? I will have to be alert to this behavior. So far Cheryl does not seem apathetic. She does have a fading memory. Are they the same?

Carpe Diem.