Chapter Two

2001

The neurologist who examined my husband for his memory problems never gave us a diagnosis. I had to look at the examination invoice to see the word “dementia.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. At least it wasn’t the dreaded “A” word. “A” as in Alzheimer’s. Dementia, I thought. Must be senile dementia. Must be a normal part of aging. Don’t all elderly people start losing their memory? Little did I suspect then that in a bit more than a year, the “A” word would barge in with all the fury and frenzy of a charging rhinoceros to trample all our hopes and dreams of an enjoyable and comfortable retirement in our new home.

We had been noticing for several years that Lee was having problems. Little things, like being unable to figure out how to center a curtain rod he was installing, or forgetting the word while moving from the clue to the right space in the crossword puzzle. His short term memory was certainly bad, but he was able to tell stories from his past that made me think he was okay.

He noticed that he was having enough problems that he voluntarily gave up flying his Super Cub. “Too hard to hear the air controllers on the radio,” he said. He definitely had hearing problems, the result of being a mechanic all his life, and working with loud power tools and louder heavy equipment.

In the fall of 2000, we finally started building our dream home. We had lived on this four and a half acre parcel for twenty-three years, first in a small trailer house, and then in a one-room apartment over our garage. Lee had injured his back during the fall of 1999 and spent three months lying in bed. No sooner had he recovered from that than he fell on ice and injured his shoulder. That required surgery and a long recovery period. Not having a separate bedroom pointed out to us that we needed to do something else.

We hired a local carpenter. I was frustrated when Lee was unable to visualize the house from the floor plans, even when I took boxes from the pantry and stacked them up to resemble the design. I thought he was just humoring me, and not taking much interest.

We had worked with this carpenter before and because we wanted to assist, the carpenter gave us a “cut” list of lumber. I read the measurements to Lee. It immediately became apparent that Lee was unable to measure and mark a board and then cut it. He would repeat the measurement to me incorrectly. I took over the measuring and marking, and he cut the boards. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, as this was so unlike him.

A visit to his family doctor resulted in an MRI of Lee’s brain to rule out organic problems, and then he was referred to Dr. Janet Saunders, a neurologist, in January of 2001. That was when we learned he had dementia. She never said the word, but described to us in physician’s terms what we had just told her were examples of his memory problems. Not being able to figure out how to get out of a parking lot in order to go a certain direction was a spatial orientation problem, as was losing track of where he was on the streets of the city.

Dr. Saunders prescribed Exelon to see if he could tolerate it. She said it could help with the memory problems. We were to check back before the prescription expired to see if he would continue on this regimen.

The two month trial period on the drug Exelon was almost up when I called Dr. Saunder’s office to see about an appointment. The receptionist said they had no openings for quite some time. When I explained the problem with the prescription running out, she said they would just renew it. We made an appointment for several months away, even though I was concerned about him starting a drug and not being monitored. Lee continued on that lowest possible dosage for over a year.

The house construction was occupying all our time and energy and we didn’t have much time to worry about Lee’s condition. Just normal aging, I continued to think.

He was making weekly hundred mile round trips to the city for supplies. One day, while hauling a trailer load of sheet rock, the transmission in the truck failed. Plans were made to haul the truck into the city to get it repaired, but Lee procrastinated. He had an appointment for the truck repair on Monday morning. By Thursday he had done nothing to get the truck moved. The fact that it was a one ton crew cab, four wheel drive automatic complicated things.
Finally I asked what the problem was.

“I can’t figure out if it will fit on the trailer,” he said. This was a man who had trucked heavy equipment, supplies and produce all over the west coast of the states, and he was telling me he couldn’t figure out if the truck would fit on his car hauler trailer. He told me he would measure the width of the truck and by the time he got fifty feet over to where the trailer was, he would have forgotten.

I suggested we both measure. He insisted I take a pen and paper to write down the measurements. I determined the truck would fit, as long as we put planks on the trailer so the wheel hubs would rise above the low railings on the trailer. The more talking I did to convince him that it would fit, the more concerned I became about his mental condition. It was pretty obvious that he was impaired, but he was able to get the truck loaded and take it to be repaired.

For the past couple years going to the city with him had been unpleasant. The highway department had pressed rumble strips along both sides of the highway, and in the middle in some places, to warn motorists when they were straying out of the proper lane. Lee could not stay off them. He would drift from edge to center and back to edge. Frequently he or other motorists would engage in various road rage demonstrations. I thought it was just a matter of time before he and another motorist came to blows.

(to be continued)