Chapter Nine

Winning and Losing

June 2002

A follow-up appointment with Dr. Saunders goes quite well. Lee is doing so well, and she is so impressed, that she leaves the exam room and asks her ANP Ann to come and observe him. Ann’s face lights up with surprise and relief when Lee speaks to her.

Dr. Saunders tells me that she had been quite worried about me taking Lee home from the hospital, rather than placing him in an assisted living home. I do not confide to her that I felt steamrollered by those events last month, that I was unprepared to make decisions so quickly. Suddenly he was being discharged from the hospital, and I hadn't had a chance to think.

Dr. Saunders recommends that Lee not drive any more. He doesn't like this, naturally, but he accepts her recommendation.

As time passes, he begins to believe she has taken his driver’s license, and I say nothing to correct this delusion. I will not have to be the bad guy who made him stop driving. I had been expecting a monumental battle. He has always been a proud, competitive, "can do" man, and his voluntary surrender of his driving privileges speaks volumes to me about his own awareness of his failing abilities.

He drives our vehicles on our own property and rarely goes out on the highway, except to get from one driveway to the next. I encourage him to go around the back way, and down the airstrip he had built, rather than pull out on the highway. Occasionally, he chooses to drive his four wheel ATV. As the summer progresses, I notice he is having more and more trouble shifting the machine. Putting it into reverse involves squeezing the brake handle, pushing a button, and using the left foot to push down a shift lever. This is too complicated, and he frequently calls me for assistance.

At other times, he turns the machine off without putting it in neutral. It will not start again unless it is in neutral, and this confuses him. I get on the ATV and rock it until I can shift into neutral, then I start it for him.

By this time Lee is taking Zyprexa (an anti-schizophrenic) and Klonopin (an anti-seizure medication to help with muscle spasms.) His left arm occasionally jerks quite violently. He continues on the Exelon, but the dosage has been increased.

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