Date dyslexia

I have date dyslexia. There is no such thing! I hear you saying that. And maybe there is not a definitive malady called date dyslexia but I describe it thus. I know my wife’s birthday. It is May 10. On May first, I will think Cheryl’s birthday is coming, perhaps I should find a present or order some flowers and then I put that thought aside. On May second, I will think Cheryl’s birthday is coming, perhaps I should find a present or order some flowers and then I put that thought aside. On May third, I will think Cheryl’s birthday is coming, perhaps I should find a present or order some flowers and then I put that thought aside. At this point I am sure you can understand where this process is going. On May ninth, I will think Cheryl’s birthday is coming, perhaps I should find a present or order some flowers and then I put that thought aside with no more urgency than May first.

I know when her birthday is but I have no concept of whether that is a couple days away, a week away or a month away. Actually months are easy because they have different names. Over the years I have employed various devices to overcome this dilemma and I became quite good at fixing it in my business life and when Bill Gates and the boys invented Outlook, let’s just say, it was a dream solution. Now, however, I am retired and do not own Outlook on any home computer or computer-like device. We do have a wall calendar and I have a desk calendar given to me by our financial champions who manage our affairs. These two devices give a visual image of the map of the month and where activities lie within it. All that is necessary is to look at one or both calendars. If only it was that easy.

Date confusion

One of the symptoms of Cheryl’s Parkinson’s disease is confusion about time of day, day of the week, week of the month. Sometimes looking at a calendar – I think of the wall calendar as hers and the desk calendar as mine – specifically the wall calendar does not enable her to get her bearings about where we are in the months activities. This is bad news for me because she was the anchor of our family and social activities throughout our life. Countless times I have had to cancel plans made with my buddies after discovering that my golf game, beer bash or something was going to clash with another prior event scheduled on the calendar. No more! The guy with date dyslexia is left to manage the wall calendar events. Woe is us!

Winter in Ohio

It is winter in Ohio and in southern Ohio that means occasional visits with the white death of snow. Good news for the bakeries and dairy farmers. Bad news for the schedulers of doctor visits and for school administrators not as bad as it could be given the current stay at home covid climate.

What’s happening this week? – is the often asked question while she is staring at the calendar in the hallway. I responded with, “nothing today but tomorrow you will get your covid booster shot.” Spoken by the guy with date dyslexia. She responded with, “no it’s not.”

I had been concerned with the relentless weather reporting of inches and inches and maybe feet of snowfall predicted for the southwestern part of Ohio. I was worried about the second booster shot and making sure she was there to get it. I help out part time at a local community college and had already forewarned them that this booster appointment was going to affect my availability this week. As I walked up behind her to view the map of the month she and I both realized that she was tuned into the correct week after all and I had mentally moved her booster appointment up by a week.

I laughed at myself. Today she has both oars in the water. And my dyslexia was still active.

For me as a care giver to Cheryl, it is a stresser. Perhaps I need to lighten up and realize that I signed up for text message alerts about appointments. All would be well with the date dyslexic disability.

Sometimes with Parkinson’s the caregiver becomes the caregivee.