February 2006

I am missing a year of emails from my mother. In this time Barney died. Many details are missing. I asked my mother whether she saved any messages from that period and she sent me the following:

I am afraid that I purge my sent messages about every two or three weeks. Most of the messages I send are very brief and not very important (I disagree but I didn't save them either). But I think that I can remember how Nana was when she was with Barney. Nana did the driving, but Barney did most of the thinking. Nana functioned pretty well during that time, but there were signs that she was already having problems with her memory and judgment. She was still playing the organ at church and at a funeral home. She always remembered when she needed to be somewhere for a service. When she and Barney were at D's (my cousin) wedding (September 2003), she sideswiped a truck that was parked along the road and broke the side mirror on her car. Barney and I advised her to just pay for it to be replaced without calling her insurance company because it was not very expensive, and the insurance company would raise her rates and maybe even make her take a driving test. So she paid for it herself.

A few weeks later, she backed into a woman in the parking lot of CVS. Nana’s car was not damaged, but the other lady was crying because her car was new and Nana backed into the side of it. So Nana told her not to worry, that she would pay for it to be fixed. She told her to get an estimate. The woman and her daughter came the next day and Nana wrote her a check. I looked out the window of my room. The two doors on the side were clearly bashed-in. Later I asked Nana why she did not call the insurance company. She said that Barney and I told her not to when she broke her mirror. The car she hit was a brand new BMW. I did not even ask what it cost her. It was too late to do anything about it.

As Alzheimer's disease progresses, it is common for people to lose skills they once had. This is frustrating for them and for the people who live with them. There is a depressing, but outstanding, Patrick Stewart movie that shows this progression clearly: Safe House.

Feb 28, 2006
A (my aunt) gave Nana a coffee maker that will make just one cup. She showed Nana how to use it Sunday night when she brought us home. Tonight Nana told me that it does not work. It spills hot water all over the place. I suspect that she is not locking the coffeemaker before she turns it on. I told her that I would try to teach her how to use it tomorrow. She can no longer use the microwave, so I might not be successful. But I will try.