A Little Confused Joe

There have been signs of Dad's Alzheimer's for many years. Confusion is one of them, and it becomes more pronounced as the disease progresses. The way that it suddenly makes a leap from little apparent confusion to much greater confusion is always astounding. One of those sudden leaps occurred this week. We have to remember that Dad has been struggling with his words more and more for some time. This week it was like he lost the battle.

At his day care center they have activities for the clients all day long. The only ones he usually remembers, however, are the ones most immediately before he comes home. This past Friday he was trying to tell us about an activity that they had done that he had seemingly enjoyed a great deal. Unfortunately we are still not completely certain what it was. Words seemed to stream from his mouth without saying anything. Maybe it was "hangman" or maybe it was a group word search, I suppose it doesn't really matter. He would sputter and speak syllables and then word groups that made no sense while my bride and I played 20 questions to elicit an answer that made sense. It never came. I then asked him if it was the last activity of the day. He had a hard time with that so I repeated the question more slowly. His answer, at least the answer that I heard, was, "It was before the chicken coop." My bride who is much smarter than I am knew that he said it was before the bus came.

Saturday morning at breakfast we could hear the neighbors installing a new front porch. I said, "The neighbors are putting on a new front porch today." He said, "What is that?" I explained it and he asked "Why?". Again I explained, but I didn't know what he was thinking. After he finished eating he went to the front door and looked out the window. "You have a nice front porch." He thought it was our front porch and he wanted to help build it. Then he started saying another group of nonsense syllables and then he asked me if I "wanted a blue march." Now, I know what he meant by "march", but what did he mean by "blue"? Readers summit your comments. Again, my bride knew.

Later that morning I was outside painting windows when he stuck his head out the door and asked, "Do you have medicine for go fast behind?" Readers? I am getting into his lingo a little and knew what he wanted and sent him in search of my bride who would both know what he wanted and give it to him. He has had much greater conceptual problems since Friday night. It just seemed to happen, and it hasn't cleared up even a little. One more piece of the puzzle fell out. But he is still happy. Happy is good.