Loving Through Alzheimers: The Mundane

Today I have to take my mother in law, along with my three year old, up to the hospital to have blood work done.

The poor woman has been agonizing over this for over a week now, unable to think of anything else, so I am anxious to cross it off our list of things to do.

She isn't nervous about the blood draw or the needles; she is nervous that somehow this will get forgotten. She is nervous that somehow, she will have messed this up. You see, she isn't so far gone that she is confused by everything. She is in that awful place of simply knowing that she isn't to be counted on. She can't have the actual prescription in her hand in case she were to lose it. She is very aware of her tendency towards confusion, and this is agonizing for her.

For a week now, at least, she has approached us many times a day and many times a night, with her calendar in hand asking if we remember she needs someone to take her to the hospital on the 14th.

Yes we remember.

The actual trip to the blood lab will be a piece of cake. We'll read books and draw pictures, and I'll just keep one eye on my mother in law to make sure she hasn't gone too far astray at any given moment.

Then, we'll come back home and for a little while anyway, the calender visits from my mother in law will stop until the next big appointment looms near.