.......Dear Friends, I thought of something to contribute that some of you may relate to. .......During the few years preceding my Dear Helen's diagnosis of vascular dementia, I was sometimes embarrassed by her unusual behavior and had no idea what was going on with her.... Later.....after diagnosis, and after reading some of the stories on this site, I not only came to understand it...... But I expected it. ......So here are four little ....."Before Diagnosis".....stories that I can never forget.
...... My doctor had sent me to see a specialist and my Dear Helen insisted on going with me. We waited about ten minutes for him in his office and when he came in he introduced himself and shook both of our hands. He happened to be a rather small oriental man and the first words that came out of Helen's mouth was, "Are you sure you're a doctor?... you look like a little kid"..... Naturally I was embarrassed, but as it turned out, it was no big deal to Dr. Woo. He just smiled and said "I AM... a little kid, a thirty-two year old little kid".
...... Helen loved to dance, and since I was not very good at it, she loved to dance with other guys. I remember one time at a Lions club social event when I was dancing with Jean Popma, and Helen was having a good time dancing nearby with Jim Else, I heard Jim exclaim. rather loud, "Oh my God", and Helen was laughing. Other dancers also heard it and we all wondered what was going on. ......Later, I asked Helen what that was all about and she told me "Oh that was nothing......Jim had his hand on my butt so I flexed my muscles for him".
...... Every Tuesday evening we would meet at Los Jaritos Mexican restaurant with a group of friends from our Lions Club for a nice meal and social. We had been doing this for years and were good friends with everyone there. One of the waiters, Aristeo, was his name, was always quite friendly with Helen and he would sometimes sing to her. This particular night he was singing "Bessame Mucho" to her and inserting the word "Ajhora" into the song. One of our friends, Richard Gonzales, explained to Helen that the words he was singing meant "Give me a kiss" and that “Ajhora” meant "Right now" .......So Helen said OK and gave Aristeo a nice Kiss.... Then Richard said "How about me?" so she gave him a kiss. Then all the guys at our table wanted one so she went around the table and kissed each one. And then that wasn't the end of it. Some fellow at a nearby table said "How about me", so of course she went over and gave him a kiss. The only guy who didn't get a kiss was me.........I forgot to say "How about me?"
.......When our son Barney was going through his divorce, Helen and I went with him to the court proceedings to show our support. His wife's attorney, Mr. Tuckerman, had found out that Barney had set up a checking account in Helen's name. He put Helen on the witness stand and asked her, "Now Mrs. Streit. How big were those checks you were writing?" Helen put her hands up with her fingers out to show the size and said. "They were about like this"...... Well......Everyone had a good laugh, even the judge, but Tuckerman was furious. He told Helen, "Now Mrs. Streit, this is not a comedy show where we try to be funny. This is ...." Bang...Bang...Bang...went the judge's gavel, and the judge said. "Mr. Tuckerman......I will not have anyone intimidating a witness in my court". .......So poor Mr. Tuckerman had to rephrase the question and Helen told him she never looked at the amount. She just signed her name........ ...... .Helen was not trying to be funny. She was serious.
Your stories are funny but sad at the same time, George. I can definitely relate. Larry loved his lawn tractor, and would mow and mow and mow. And mow. Then he would go over to the neighbor's. And mow. And mow, and mow, and mow. Then he would go over to the other neighbor's. And mow and mow and mow. Needless to say, these people had their own perfectly good arrangements for their lawn care, and did not want Larry bombing around on the lawn tractor mowing the whole neighborhood...and not doing a particularly good job. Like he would spend hours mowing our yard...but he would only mow half the yard...forgetting about the half on the other side of the house. People talk about taking away the car keys (another huge issue, and I could write five pages about that one)...but taking away the lawn tractor was almost a bigger issue than the car keys issue. Finally when it had to be picked up by the service guys for yearly repair and maintenance, I had a little conversation with them on the side. They were more than understanding and sympathetic. The lawn tractor went into the shop, "was in too bad of condition and good not be fixed"...yeah right...and it never came back home. The yard crew whom I then paid to do our yard were mostly Hispanic, and could not have been nicer and more understanding of Larry's condition when he would go outside and try to direct them in what to do. (Like try to get them to remove important elements of the landscaping.) They would be pleasant and polite...very kind...but would pretend they couldn't understand English.
Oh George, how you are bringing back the good old days! (Ha-ha...more like the bad old days.)
Thanks for the cute story about Larry and the lawn tractor.
I guess you don't know that it's very easy to edit your typos. I do it all the time..........in fact, I have edited this twice.
Just sign in, then go to your blog and you will notice the tiny word.....edit....in the upper right corner. Just click on it. Don't forget to click.....Save Changes
Unfortunately many of my wife's early signs weren't as amusing, though I do joke about them with her sisters.
But largely rage and my need to walk on eggshells and make peace. When our son was 4 or 5 her sister the speech therapist recommended speech therapy for him. My SIL noted speech problems and a weak jaw. My wife went ballistic and said nothing was wrong with our son. Fortunately a few months later she changed her mind and he had speech therapy, which made a huge difference, before starting kindergarden.
More amusing was how she would go overboard. When around 3 he had a lot of fun playing with a toy kitchen at a friend's house. So we decided to buy him a toy kitchen and hopefully encourage an interest in cooking. So we had to also buy all of these additional fake food items and she directed her entire family to only buy him these fake food items. So at Xmas he was overwhelmed with food related toys. Way too much
I have a few of those stories too. Things that were puzzling at the time. Only later you get it.
Eleven years ago my dad did not have a long time to live, so I went out of the country for a week to say goodbye to him. My husband stayed behind with four kids, one fourteen years old, the rest college age. I had left them enough ingredients for simple meals, and I knew there would be no real problems, for I had been gone for 10 days five years before, and they had been fine. I came back to a husband begging me not to leave him in that situation again. The children said that Dad had not been able to keep things going, and had not been able to cook a meal at all. They had arranged everything amongst themselves...
Later we got a new sink, and with it came one of those beautiful faucets with only one handle to regulate water temperature. He was never able to understand how to work it, and as he usually did the dishes with the kids, in the end I myself cut off the beautiful new faucet and got another one with two knobs...
We needed a new phone, and I decided that it was time for a cordless one. He never was able to use any of its functions, like the list of past callers and the internal phone book. In the end he kind of learned to turn it on and off with the button, though not every time...
And that for a man with a PhD, not especially handy, but usually well able to reason things out and make them work. How did I ever not catch on that it was dementia???