Taking care of Judy hadn’t cut into my time spent on the activities I enjoyed—playing golf, writing novels, and attending creative writing critique sessions. However, at this point in our journey, incidents kept occurring that kept me mindful of Judy’s state of mind.
Two days after Suzanne’s return to Oklahoma from her Thanksgiving visit, I went to get cash for a trip to the driving range from our envelope with $300 cash we kept under Judy’s hand-carved wooden jewelry box on her dresser against the wall opposite our bed; the envelope wasn’t there. Judy must have found the envelope under the jewelry box, considered it to be out of place, and put it away.
“Where’s our cash envelope?” I asked her.
Silence.
Judy followed me around as I looked for that envelope, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Finally, I withdrew more cash from our bank account, placed it in a new envelope, marked it “cash,” and hid it in my office closet where Judy wasn’t likely to look for it.
Months later, when I picked up the clear-plastic storage container with wrapping paper from under Judy’s hanging clothes in our walk-in closet, out dropped the envelope with $155 inside.”
Judy was a neat-nick, and Alzheimer’s hadn’t change that. When she found something she felt to be out of place, she’d put it where she thought it belonged; now, there was no logic to her choice of where she thought things belonged. It was as if her logic circuits were no longer functional. I kept reminding myself to put things away after use.
#
Judy made up our queen-sized bed every day. “A made bed means a well-kept house,” she used to tell our kids. Each child had to make his or her own bed before going to school. “Making beds teaches a child a sense of responsibility,” she used to say. “The kids love sheet-washing day,” she once told me, “On that day, I make the beds.”
One morning, I noticed Judy limping as she walked around the bed; I suspected arthritis.
“Can I help you make the bed?” I asked.
She smiled. “That would be nice.”
Helping Judy make our bed became part of our daily routine. One morning a few months later, when I finished reading the paper, I got up from my chair, and headed for the bedroom. “It’s time to make the bed.”
Judy glanced up but made no effort to follow me into the bedroom. I wondered if making the bed had become too painful for her, or if she had forgotten that she had ever been the one to make the bed.
From that point on, if the bed got made, I made it myself.
#
In September, a Regency Association golf friend invited me to become an usher at our church.
“No, I like you in the pew next to me,” Judy said.
I felt an obligation to help out at church and agreed to serve at the Saturday 5:30 vigil Mass, the one we usually attended. During Mass, I’d stand in the center aisle at the rear of the church where I could see Judy.
I had been ushering for a year when one Saturday, I saw Judy looking for her pew coming back from communion with a panicked look on her face. I realized she didn’t remember where she had been sitting; that was the last time I ushered. A few months after I joined Judy in her pew, the pain in Judy’s knees caused her to quit going to church.
Agreeing to usher was the wrong decision; I belonged in the pew next to Judy. The congregation at our church was large enough to support the ushering program without my help.
#
The ushering experience made me more sensitive to Judy’s needs; I began watching her as she got ready for bed. I checked to see that she took her medications, used her eye drops, and brushed her teeth—her normal routine before bedtime.
“Did you brush your teeth?” I’d ask.
More often than not, she’d say, “Oh, I forgot,” grab her toothbrush, put paste on it, and begin brushing.
One night, she held her Lumigan bottle for me to see. “Can you help me with this?” she asked. “I can’t squeeze the bottle hard enough to get the drops out.”
I wasn’t sure if Judy had lost the strength in her index finger and thumb that kept her from pressing hard enough or if the small new plastic container was harder and more difficult to squeeze. I began putting Lumigan in each eye as part of our process for getting her ready for bed. The eye drops kept the eye pressure in each eye in the normal range.
During a routine ophthalmologist appointment, the doctor asked, “Is Judy using her Timolol in the morning and Lumigan in the evening?”
“I’m putting Lumigan drops in both eyes in the evenings, but I haven’t been checking in the morning. What’s her pressure readings?” I asked.
“In the left eye, 23 psi, in the right eye, 26 psi. It’s important that she gets both the morning and the evening drops,” the doctor said. “Monitor her in the morning and night and let’s do a follow-up appointment.”
I began putting eye drops in Judy’s eyes both morning and evening. At the follow-up ophthalmologist appointment, Judy’s pressure in her left eye was 14 psi and the right eye, 16 psi, well within the normal range.
When Judy asked for help putting in her evening drops, it hadn’t occurred to me that she might need help with her morning drops. This was a serious issue; Judy’s father, like Judy, had glaucoma and he went blind in one eye because no one was monitoring to see if he used his eye drops.
This eye drop incident was another reminder to check things that Judy did daily, anticipating the time when this routine event would recede from her conscious memory.
#
At this time, Judy could no longer exist in a normal temperature range. “I’m cold,” she’d say. I set the thermostat to 78 degrees, the highest temperature I could tolerate. I’d ask her, “Are you warm enough?”
“I’m cold.”
I wrapped Judy’s waist and legs with the electric blanket specifically designed for a person sitting which Suzanne had given her mom for Christmas. The warmth brought a smile to Judy’s face. I also made sure her electric blanket was set each evening so she could sleep comfortably through the night. I couldn’t change her internal body temperature control system, but I could adjust the environment to her needs.
#
I had read in multiple sources that a person with Alzheimer’s tends to wander outside as if in search of some vague feeling and could stray into unknown areas in hazardous weather and dangerous traffic conditions. The Alzheimer’s WEB page recommended registering a person with Alzheimer’s with local authorities so that experts armed with the wanderer’s description and key facts about their condition could launch a search with skilled people at finding a person with dementia. The Alzheimer’s Association WEB page sold identification bracelets for ease of identification and notification of the caregiver if a person with Alzheimer’s got lost.
Over the years, Judy had avoided spending time outside because her red hair came with light skin that easily burned in the sun. In my mind, the fact that she didn’t go outside would prevent her from wandering. As added protection from her wandering, when an outside door opened, our alarm system announced, “front door open,” or “sliding door open,” or “garage door open” even when the alarm on the security system was not set. When I heard such an announcement, I went to that door and would find Judy puttering around the flower beds or sweeping leaves up from the sidewalk or opening the garage refrigerator.
I didn’t consider Judy a serious risk for wandering; to my mind, the alarm system functioned as a safeguard against her leaving the house without my knowledge. I never registered her with the authorities, nor did I buy her the identification bracelet.
Although I had taken precautions to ensure that Judy didn’t leave the house without my knowledge, registering her with the authorities as a wanderer would have been a better choice. I wore hearing aids which I removed when taking a shower. If Judy had left the house during that time, I wouldn’t have known she was gone. If she ever wandered, registering her with the authorities would have given them access to information that would have helped in searching for her and caring for her needs when found.