Heartfelt Journey

Back in 2022/2023, I started noticing little moments of forgetfulness, but nothing too alarming.  They were moments that seemed to be easily explained and dismissed.  As the years have passed, I’ve increasingly noticed that her memory is not how it used to be.  I kept telling myself that it’s fine, it’s just old age and it’s normal to forget things as time goes on.  First it was putting the milk in the cupboard or forgetting where she put something.  It grew into leaving the burner on or forgetting what day of the week it was.  Even though these forgetful moments were happening, I kept dismissing it as old age until one day I could no longer make excuses on what was happening. Further to that, she had been hospitalized in April 2023 and the doctors at the hospital never mentioned Dementia and did not seem to show concern with this.  There’s a reason why I am mentioning this which I will explain later.

I thought I knew what Alzheimer’s was based on what I saw in movies and thought there is no way my mom has Alzheimer’s.  Since my mom knew who I was and hadn’t forgotten those in her life there was no way she had it.  We also don’t have a history of it in our family so how could she possibly have it.  Furthermore, she had been in the hospital for over 1 week, they had done a CT scan and a battery of tests, and Dementia was never mentioned.  I kept telling myself, it’s just old age.  My idea of what Alzheimer’s is was so wrong and now I am trying to learn and navigate this new world.   I didn’t realize that Dementia was an umbrella and that there were different types encompassed under this umbrella.  

Fast forward to 2024 and my mom was now forgetting the day of the week, the month and year we are in.  She was beginning to ask the same questions repeatedly, as well as beginning to occasionally forget people in her life.  An example of this occurred when I finally brought her to our family doctor for her bi-annual checkup.  My mom has Congestive Heart Failure, Atrial Fibrillation and Hypertension which require either quarterly or biannual visit to our family doctor and yearly visits to her cardiologist.   While we were waiting in the doctor’s office, she kept asking why we are here?  Am I sick? Are you lying to me?  I would reassure her that it was her normal visit to check up to make sure she was ok, and we needed a renewal of her medications.  Minutes would pass and she would ask again.  Her questions almost seemed as though she was scared or paranoid which was not her norm when visiting the doctor.  I finally expressed my concerns with our family doctor.  He asked her a few simple questions, date, year, his name, and she could not answer any of his questions.  She believed we were in the 1990s and she knew he was a doctor but couldn’t recall his name even though he’s been our doctor for over 20 years.  He asked me questions about her memory at home, and I shared how she leaves the burner on, how she refuses to bathe or take a shower, how she refuses to change her clothes and how she continually asks the same question.  At this time, he shared his thoughts that he believed she had Dementia, but she would need to complete the MoCA assessment, have a CT scan performed and be referred to a geriatrician.  He needed her to complete bloodwork first and then we could proceed. This was end of December 2024 and we had all the appointments set up for January 2025.  The plan seemed easy enough and shouldn’t take too long.  What I did not factor in was my mom’s resistance and her toddler like meltdowns about doing what was necessary to hopefully get a diagnosis and they help she needed.  

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.  I will continue the journey in the next entry.