HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
July 20, 2007 [Author's Note: The following is an excerpt from a book that I am working on. Just like the life that my husband and I are living ...this is a work in progress.] The sun creeps in through the vertical blinds on the window next to my bed. I blink and for a few moments look forward to a bright new day. In that few moments of unawareness I think of what I will do this Tuesday at the end of another hot Arizona Summer. I need to clean out closets, sort out my file system, wrap Christmas presents and a myriad of other chores that I have been putting off for months (well, okay, YEARS). Than it dawns on me that this isn’t your normal Tuesday, in fact there will NEVER be another normal Tuesday in my present life. This is the day that my husband needs to get up earlier than usual, have his medication with water only and be ready to leave the house in under two hours. I jump out of bed without looking and immediately bang into the coffee table that acts as a receptacle for clothes, books and other things that I have no time to put away. The only good thing about this injury is that I yell loud enough to wake my sleeping spouse.He comes into the room rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and looking panicked. “Are you okay?” he asks. I answer that I am fine and hide the leg where I can see the blood seeping down to the tiled floor. Damn klutz.” I mutter to myself as I grab his pills and escort him into the kitchen so that he can complete the medication process in record time.He argues, as usual, and tries to head for the family-room with its big screen television and the ever-present Weather Channel, but I head him off at the pass and re-direct him back to the kitchen where I explain for the hundredth time that today is his testing day at the research center and that he is to be fasting after he consumes his daily medication. “What research center? What tests? Why do I have to go there? What day is it?” begins the liturgy of questions that I get on an hourly basis every single day, give or take the subject matter and date, chores, etc. I explain again what is to transpire and he reluctantly swallows his pills with water. One medication is a powder that he usually mixes with juice and I can see him wince as he swallows the pasty substance with the plain bottled water I have offered him. I feel for him but have no time to show much sympathy. He MUST start to get ready and so must I. More questions (see above for reference), and he starts to get ready. I too begin my daily routine and realize that I am still bleeding from the cut on my leg and that it is now inside my shoe. “Shit!” I mutter, as I grab a wash cloth, rinse myself off and change into another pair of shoes. When I am done doing all of the things that a woman must do in order to leave her home and not frighten small children, I look in the mirror and realize that my hair isn’t combed and that I look as scary as hell. I rush into the bathroom almost crashing through the closed and LOCKED door (he is not supposed to lock doors anymore). I need to be able to gain immediate access just in case. He’s forgotten my edict and locked himself in. I ask him nicely to let me in and I get some mumbled response that has the distinct sound of aggravation flowing from the sounds coming through the door. Uh oh, here we go. People with Alzheimer’s often become temperamental and my husband is no exception. His normally sweet nature is often AWOL these days and has been replaced with a growl of sorts. I’ve been told that some patients can become violent in the throws of this awful disease but I have not witnessed that as of yet. I am hoping that I never will because I am counting on the fact that my husband is one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet. I may be kidding myself but I’d prefer to live in denial for the time being. I repeat AGAIN, that we need to be out of the house in less than half an hour and he asks, “Where are we going, why do I have to get ready so early, why can’t I have my coffee?"I try to explain again and he mumbles something that I can't make out. I am pleasantly surprised to see that he has shaved the grungy beard and looks like his usual handsome self. He looks like he’s going to play a game of golf and is wearing new shorts, a new shirt and new shoes that he has NEVER worn before. I am puzzled so I ask him why the new clothes? “They were all that I could find.” is his answer. I don’t have the time to figure out why he can’t find any other clothes in the closet that holds a large wardrobe of mostly new clothing that he has never worn and is in plain sight.. At last we are in the car and the driving routine begins, “Where are we going? Which way should I turn? Why are we going there?” I answer, give directions, grit my teeth and prepare for a long, long day. Upon arrival at the research center, we are ushered into the usual closet sized room and a nurse comes and takes my husband’s vital signs. Than Zoran comes in and explains everything to us again and has us fill out another ream of paperwork which we both must sign. At long last we are ready to begin the testing. A nurse draws blood from my fasting husband who gets rather silly and pretends that she has mortally wounded him. She laughs (because he is rather funny and he is an actor, after all), and than we are given passes for the hospital’s cafeteria so that when the tests are completed we can feed the starving six foot three, one hundred and eighty-five pound man who’s stomach can be heard growling all the way to California . Before we are to walk across to the main hospital Zoran does an EKG and reminds us that we shouldn’t forget to get a chest x-ray before we leave the hospital as apparently his last patient did forget and things got messed up and complicated. I do NOT need any complications in my life so I commit the words chest x-ray to memory for the rest of my life and off we go. There’s a problem at the hospital because I am forever getting lost in the maze-like hallways and am not sure where we are supposed to go or how to get there. Zoran, being the sweet person that he is, walks across the steaming parking lot with us and takes us by the collective hands to the radiology department. I am thinking that he will never see us again because I have no idea how to get back out of there and return to the research center. Fortunately, there are many volunteers who donate their spare time (which is MOST of their time since they are retirees from our community), to helping the lost and the befuddled like me. We present the paperwork at the registration desk and are directed down another long hallway to an area that is clearly marked RADIOLOGY. Remember that sentence and the words “clearly marked”, because it will be referenced again soon. We sit down and inhale the usual hospital smells and grab what passes for reading material in the small waiting room outside the clearly marked RADIOLOGY area. The selection consists of “Golf Magazine”, “Readers Digest” and “Highlights Magazine”. “Highlights?", I say to myself, this is a retirement community and there are no children living here…so why “Highlights”? Yet another conundrum that I chose not to dwell on in order to preserve what little sanity I have left. In about fifteen minutes my husband’s name is called and he enters the dark, cold inner sanctum where the human body is observed via radiation on cold stainless steel tables and words like “Breathe, hold it, now let it out” are spoken over and over again. It takes about half hour for the test to be completed and as I am about to start our search for the cafeteria my brain kicks in and the words CHEST X-RAY burst through the fog in my weary brain. I ask for directions and we are off to fulfill the promise that I made to Zoran. We are seated this time in a very large waiting room with a slightly better selection of magazines (they have a “Newsweek” from sometime last century in the bin with the usual suspects). We wait…and wait….and wait…and wait until my blood pressure starts to climb to heights previously unknown and I jump up to go and check what the hold up is at the desk. It never fails, there is always at least one rude, uninterested person working behind one of those desks. This time is no exception and she tells me that he has to wait his turn like everyone else. "Everyone else?", I think to myself, we are the only ones in the room and have been there for over an hour. I cannot stand to read one more condensed novel or lame joke contained in “Readers Digest” and my husband’s stomach is now sounding like the Philharmonic Orchestra. I ask her approximately how long we will have to wait and she snidely says, “As long as it takes.” Not a good move on her part because I am a second or two away from jumping over the counter and strangling her to death. She is saved from a fate worse than death and I, a long prison term by a young man who comes into the area and calls out my husband’s name. Ten minutes later the testing is complete and we can now go eat. Four volunteers later and several long, winding hallways takes us to the cafeteria and food. The selection is really awful since it is now way past lunchtime and long before dinner. I select macaroni and cheese (a definite throw-back to my school cafeteria days,) and despite the horrid smell of the mass of glutinous stuff on my plate it's the only choice that doesn't look like it will soon develop a pair of legs and walk away on it's own. My husband bypasses what looks like mystery meat and has the same. He also gets a GIANT cup of grey coffee and a pudding from another area of the cafeteria and we go to pay with our free lunch passes. Fortunately, even though we are slightly over the limit the nice cafeteria lady lets it go and we find a table. My husband lingers over his coffee for far too long and I finally convince him that we need to get back to the research center before they close for the day. Another four volunteers and a brisk walk in one hundred and three degree weather and we find ourselves back where we started from that morning. After another hour of explanations and paperwork we are informed that on Wednesday, they are sending a Town Car to take us downtown to Banner Samaritan Hospital where they will conduct both a PET scan and an MRI on my husband’s brain. The results of these tests will be sent to the United Kingdom for processing as this is a double blind study and no names are attached to the testing results, only numbers. They will fax over the preliminary results to the research center and that will help to determine whether or not my husband gets the medication being tested via the Study. I am not thrilled to hear that tomorrow will be even worse than today and I become very nervous about getting him ready for such a long trip. I am told that he must eat breakfast and take his medication before six o’clock the next morning because the tests are scheduled for noon and he must be in a fasting state for six hours prior to the testing. That means that I will need to get up at around five-thirty in the morning, get him to take his pills and eat something, get him dressed, get myself dressed and hope against hope that the car service shows up in time to get us to the hospital on time. After leaving the research center, going home and preparing dinner I am absolutely worn out just contemplating the next day’s activities. My husband is happy once again and watching the same movie that he watched twice on Monday! Does this ever get any easier? I think that I already know the answer to that question, but there is always hope. My Husband's Neurologist, Marwan Sabbagh, has a book coming out on February 8, 2008 which is entitled: "The Alzheimer's Answer, Reduce Your Risk And Keep Your Brain Healthy", which will greatly benefit those who are dealing with someone who is inflicted with this disease. I will write more about it when I receive a galley. But for now....Wednesday here we come! ------------ About the author: Meri has a Medical/Legal background and is a former forensic researcher specializing in psychological profiling. Visit the Xlibris Bookstore! Email: writers2@cox.net Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
