Old Timers…Sissies, Need Not Apply

I had the opportunity today to treat a sweet and dear, but demented older lady at a new residence center today. This particular facility caters to individuals with that much-mispronounced diagnosis of Alzheimers. It’s Alzheimers…not Old Timers, not Altimers….Alzzzzzheimers. Much to my surprise I noticed several familiar faces. There was Mrs. Sunshine over there who just last week was cavorting with her friends at the Non-Demented Facility in our fair city.

I have of course changed the names to protect the innocent and to keep myself out of jail for violating HIPAA regulations. For you non-medical people HIPAA is the federal law that requires that everyone fills out massive amounts of paper- work to say that everyone from your dentist to your chiropractor will not violate your civil rights and inadvertently leave a message on the telephone that tells you that your grandmother’s pregnancy test was positive. AHHHEMM.

And then I saw the man, Mr. Corn, that just last month was a volunteer at our hospital pushing other people up and down the halls to various departments for their appointments with Radiology and Cardiology. What was he doing in here???? Oh…I remember now… he tried to walk the 24 miles to his wife’s grave one night. It apparently scared his son and daughter-in-law to death. The County Deputies were called out in-mass and were able to practice their search and rescue skills. Lucky for Mr. Corn we live in the South and that particular April night was not that cold. But 45-50 degree temperatures can certainly take a toil on a 71 year-old body and apparently his mind as well.

The next blast from the past was a former Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Crownover …Wow…I think she taught me the books of the Bible. Now she goes around and sweeps the spotless floors, dusts imaginary cobwebs and remakes her bed a dozen times a day.

It’s a pleasant life, I suppose. Not knowing or caring about consequences or where the next meal is coming from, or paying taxes or bills, or who is going to clean up everything, or who is going to maintain your home. All of the millions of decisions we make every day simply gone… poof. I suppose…it might be pleasant … as long as you have loving family members to provide a safe place for you…as long as you have kind and patient caregivers who don’t mind changing your Depends diaper for the 6th time that day….as long as you don’t turn violent and disruptive and become a behavior problem that has to be restrained…as long as you have enough balance and stability that when you go wandering (for you surely will) that you don’t fall a break and hip…as long as you like the company of others for whom these other hideous things are a problem…

Alzheimer’s…Not a disease for sissies.

So, it made me really nervous today when I actually couldn’t remember if I had left the iron on or not. So…I came home in the middle of my extremely busy day to check it out. It was turned off and unplugged. Maybe Mrs Crownover turned it off for me.

Safe, for one more night. I think I need to work more crossword puzzles.

One padded cell, please. Hold the straight jacket…


I have just realized what hell must be like…It is over-stimulation of all the senses at once. I have just returned from a frightfully fast 6-day whirlwind trip to The Big Apple with 176 other people (the majority of which were 18-15 years old). And I must say I had a ball. There is nothing like chaperoning a bunch of teenagers to make you feel alive. We saw all the sights. The Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Liberty Island, Ground Zero, St Patrick’s Cathedral, St Paul’s Church, Grand Central Station, Little Italy. Chinatown, Central Park, the financial district, shopping on 5th Avenue. We went to Lincoln Center to hear the New York Philharmonic. We saw the Lion King on Broadway. It was GREAT. I loved it!

However…

The 18 hour bus ride back home just about sent me over the edge. The vibration of the bus, the bright sun and chrome, the deafening sound of the 14th action-packed thriller DVD plugged into the bus’ sound system, and the feel of my derriere widening as I sat and sat and sat, sent me into sensory overload. We were an hour away from home and I was begging for a solid white padded room with an extensive sound barrier system. I tried to sleep. I tried ear plugs. I tried ear phones with sounds of my own choosing. No good. Will Smith’s Independence Day and Tobey Maguire’s Spider Man won the contest for custody of my hearing, while the Gray Line Bus won ownership of my vestibular system.

Don’t get me wrong. The kids were OK. There were no particularly rowdy individuals. No obnoxious behavior…but the bus trip was a little like being on a ride at Universal Studios in a bad B rated horror flick, where the ride just went on and on and on. And you can’t get off…You have to scream to be heard and you just know that someone is going to die in the end.

I know I’m being a wimp, but I think I will fly to the next destination and meet the bus of unchaperoned kids….Hey they are all “plugged into” something anyway. Teenagers these days are either texting, listening to their I-pods, playing their gaming-utensil-of- choice or watching TV. They are completely entertained and if they are entertained, they are usually staying out of trouble. So maybe I’ll just save myself some trouble….

Save me a seat on Southwest!!!!