Category Archives: Alzheimer's

DON’T SIT THIS ONE OUT!

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No, he’s not my husband.  Five minutes before this photo was shot, I had never laid eyes on the man.  But let me explain.  It all began in 1968, as I was leaving for my first high school dance.  As I headed for the door, Granny called out:  “Now remember, Dear, dance with EVERY boy who asks you.”  Her feeling was that to ever say, “No, thank you,” would be crushing to a fellow who had worked his courage up to ask in the first place.  So, I did and in the years since, not only have I never ‘sat one out,’ I have even taken to doing the asking myself. 

 Such was the case last week as I shopped for produce at Whole Foods.  Somewhere between the flowers and the blueberries, music began to play; lovely, danceable music.  As I turned towards the musicians, I noticed an older gentleman standing off to the side keeping time with his foot.  I walked up and asked him to dance.  He said, “No, thank you.  I’m just here to listen to the band.” 

 Frankly, he took a bit of coaxing but within minutes we were moving to a song whose name I can’t remember.  By then, I had dropped my coat and shopping bag to the floor.  His shy smile began to beam as others stopped to watch us.  Emboldened, we began to widen our circle and grasped hands.  Neither of us had a clue as to what we were doing, nor did we follow any kind of actual step like the waltz or foxtrot.  We just danced, this complete stranger and I.  From the corner of my eye, shoppers stopped to smile, a grinning cashier paused at his register, and a little girl pointed us out to her mother in wonder. 

 Why does she ‘wonder’?  I ask myself.  Our brief lives should be filled with moments like these; times we simply drop what we are doing and move to the music.  Moments don’t just happen.  We make them come alive by risking and yes, dancing.  These moments become our memories.  If we don’t make them joyful, we are doomed to a bitter old age.  Besides, the music doesn’t play forever.  So, to Granny, ‘Thank you for that advice.’  And to Vernon, ‘Thank you for the dance!’

 Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” a memoir of the 13 years her ‘advice-giving’ Granny descended into Alzheimer’s.

http://www.amazon.com/Kissing-Tomatoes-ebook/dp/B007CMNJKW

 

VERY THANKFUL

Everybody has a hard luck story.  At my age, I don’t even pause to hear most of them anymore.  I hang up mid-sentence on telephone salesmen, ignore the homeless waving at my windshield and no longer drop bills in the boxes of those who’s signs say:  “Lost My Job.”  I’ve just seen too many of them at the liquor store later.    

They’re just the same old words out of different mouths.  Today, though, was different.  As I was leaving the pool this morning, an elderly woman wheeled herself up to the end of the ramp in a motorized wheelchair.  The lifeguard helped her maneuver her large, awkward body into the water.  She wore a snug wetsuit, that given her limited mobility must have taken her perhaps an hour to get into. 

 Feeling strangely transfixed, I waited for her to enter the water.  As our eyes met, she beamed the most warm and radiant smile.  It was only then that I realized just how pretty she was.  Her eerily, young face seemed out of place on her crippled body.  We began walking together as if we had done this for years. 

 Over the next 20 minutes, she told me that she has osteoporosis, and both knees and one hip were replaced.  The second hip needs replacement, but it cannot be done due both to her fragility and an underlying auto-immune disease.  Her eyesight is also failing partly because her eyes cannot tolerate the medicinal drops they need. 

 She fears her husband is in the throes of Alzheimer’s but does not know what to do.  In the last month, “He has dented all four sides of his car.’  At the market last week, he forgot to purchase the items she needed and returned to get them a second time.  When he still came home without them, she suggested he not go out again and reached to pick up his car keys.  When she did, he grabbed her so hard, “I was scared for my life.” 

 She has two sons:  one is severely diabetic and the other, a former minister with a wife and 3 children was just diagnosed as bipolar.  His wife has taken a job as a part-time cashier, but my aging friend is sending them money from her dwindling retirement to keep them afloat.

 “Well,” I said, “your plate is full this Thanksgiving, but certainly not of things that you are thankful for.”    “Oh, my dear!” she beamed.  “I am VERY thankful.  I just had YOU to share all of this with!” 

GET WITH IT!!!

Well, while the rest of you wait to see who will be the next President, I am standing in line at Verizon.  A tiny, white-haired woman in front of me is barking commands to the young man at the service desk.  “No, I want the 4 “S” she hisses.  “I’m upgrading from my iPhone.  I want the Siri!”  She bangs her old iPhone down on the counter and he hustles away to find one. 

 She is flanked by two women, clearly her daughters.  I eavesdrop.  The younger one worries about the cost.  The older one says, “Mom.  You’re 82!  Why do you need such a high-tech phone?  She barely acknowledges their concerns.  Instead she says, “You both need to get with it.”   

 The young man returns, shows her the box and asks if this is what she wants.  Now he is about six-foot three.  Her head barely reaches the counter top.  “How do you expect me to see that from here?” she barks.  “Open it up and hand it over.  I’ll let you know.”  He hands her the shiny, white phone.  A big smile slowly comes over her gruff, wrinkled face.  “Yup.  Now set it up and I’ll tell you what I want.”  Over the next several minutes she will have him activate the phone, download apps and even set up her personal mailbox account. 

 “Don’t you have trouble typing into those touch screens?” I ask. 

“Nope,” she huffs. 

“Surely you remember the days of ‘party lines?’ I continue. 

“Of course.  I still remember my old number.”  She rattles it off. 

“Wow,” I say impressed.  “But don’t you kinda miss the good old days when you had to wait weeks just to get a letter from your boyfriend?” 

“Nope.  I liked Larry.  He was the bus driver.  I got on his bus every, single day and drove the whole route with him.” 

“How romantic!” I enthuse.  “Did you marry him?” 

“Heavens NO!” she exclaimed.  “He was already married.”

 Clearly there are some seniors for whom Alzheimer’s will never be an issue.

Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” a non-fiction memoir of Alzheimer’s.

        

TABLE FOR ONE

3 weeks ago, I posted, “You Just Never Know,” about two, old friends at our local Starbucks.  At the time, Joe was worried that his pal Bob, “had Alzheimer’s.”  I hadn’t been back since then, so dropped by this morning to say, “Hi.”  Bob was sitting alone outside on the bench.  Joe was nowhere in sight. 

“Hey!  Where’s your sidekick?” I teased. “He won’t be coming,” Bob said sadly.  “He has dementia, that Alzheimer’s thing.  His wife won’t let him come.  She said that they have to run tests to see if he can drive, for insurance reasons.”  When Joe’s family noticed that his memory was slipping, they took him to the doctor.  “They put him on some kind of medication  to slow down the memory loss,”  Bob tells me. Then he exhales heavily and stares out at the parking lot.  I have never seen such a big man look so small and bereft.

 ”Can’t his wife bring him?” I ask, “The last thing someone with memory loss needs is taking them away from familiar people and places.  And you guys go all the way back to the 4th grade!”  Bob just shook his head.  “Joe called to tell me all this himself,” he said sadly, “and I could hear in his voice that he was just all choked up about it.”  We both were silent again.  “Well, guess I’ll just have to get a replacement,” he said trying to be light-hearted, yet without a trace of enthusiasm in his voice.  “Maybe you can be my replacement?”  But we both knew it wasn’t a real question.  How do you replace a 65-year friendship?

I hope that his wife will bring him.  There’s an empty seat at Bob’s table now and no matter who sits there, they’ll never fill it like Joe did.  Bob didn’t chat up a single customer today and the whole place was sadder for it; even me.

Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” an Alzheimer’s memoir.

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YOU JUST NEVER KNOW

Bob and Joe are about as unlikely a pair as a cowboy boot and a Ked’s sneaker.  Yet every morning they hold court at the local Starbucks.  As customers dash in and out, there is a continual stream of “Mornin’ Bob.”  “Hey there, Joe.”  “How you guys this mornin?”  Each recognition makes Bob puff his large chest out further than the buttons on his monogrammed shirt, lean back in a chair half his size, and wait for his next admirer with one wary eyebrow raised.  Joe, as shy as Bob is bold, just beams like a low watt bulb by his side. 

As I leave, Bob asks me to join them.  Before I can answer, he huffs, “Oh, she won’t sit with us.  She’s always too busy.”  I plunk my coffee right down on their table.  He proceeds to make wisecracks about the ‘regulars,’  “Here comes Smiley,” he says, indicating a blonde who scowls past.  “Never seen her smile.  Not once.”  Sure enough.  She blows past us with neither glance nor grin despite a, “Hello,” from Bob.

His monologue continues while Joe nods sweetly in agreement, rarely speaking.  I figure his wife of 50 years must pick out his clothes.  They match, they fit and they’re always clean.  With his diminutive physique, she could still probably shop for him in the boys’ department.  They’re probably the same clothes he wore before he retired from the construction business.  “I was in cement,” he tells me with considerable pride. 

They’ve been friends since they rode the school bus together in 4th grade.  65 years later they’re still school boys, joking and telling tales about the locals.  Of course when you’ve lived in a town 75 years and know everyone, I don’t suppose it’s gossip, rather facts.  Bob’s married three times but says he’s, ‘keeping this one because I’m too tired to look anymore.”  Mid-conversation, he bolts outside for a smoke; his 5th of the day though it’s only 8 AM.  Joe’s dimming blue eyes follow his lumbering frame out the door, then he leans in, “You know, Bob was a BIG lawyer in town.  Litigation,” he whispers.  “But I think he has Alzheimer’s.” 

This throws me.  “What makes you say that?” I laugh.  “He forgets everything, and can’t find things to do,” he explains.  “What kinds of things does he forget?”  Joe is silent a long while.  He’s forgotten the question.  “The hardest part about getting old is finding things to do,” he continues.  “What do you like to do? I ask.  “Oh, I go to the Y with my wife.”  “What do you do there?” I prod.  He looks at me blankly.  I persist, “Well, when do you guys usually go?”  “Um.  When I finish my coffee, I guess,” he says.       

IT TAKES A LOT OF NERVE

It takes a lot of nerve to steal from someone but it takes even more to give what you’ve stolen back. Both scenarios occurred to an 83 year-old friend of mine yesterday.  She arrived at the pool as she has, “for the last 40 years,” with her purse stuffed inside of her gym bag.   She put them in her locker and headed out to swim. When she returned her purse was gone.

Inside, besides $60 in cash, were two gift cards from her grandchildren totaling $200, along with her ID and all of her credit cards.  Bereft, she drove straight home to cancel everything. When she finished, she walked out to her mailbox and found her purse sitting inside. The cash and gift cards were gone, but everything else was just as she had left it.

I thought about the girl who returned it in broad daylight. Someone could have seen her, including my friend. It took nerve but it also meant that she had a conscience. Nowadays you don’t see much of that. Just read the news. Not much conscience around.  Some of our politicians and PEOPLE idols could have used a grandmother like mine.

When I was five, I stole a piece of Bazooka bubblegum from the open jar at the checkout stand as Grandmother paid for our groceries. I unwrapped it, stuffed the pink sweetness into my mouth and began to chew. However, as we approached the car, Granny looked hard at me and asked, “What are you chewing?” “Gum,” I answered guiltily. “Did you pay for it?” she asked. “Um. No,” I replied, “but it only cost three cents.” “That is stealing,” she said. “The amount doesn’t matter.”

She reached into her handbag, took out a Kleenex and had me put my gum inside of it. “Now take this back and tell the clerk that you are sorry for stealing it.” Then she took three pennies from her purse and pressed them into my hand. “And here is the money to pay for it.” “But Grandma,” I protested, “You mean I have to give the gum back AND I have to pay for it, too?” “Yes,” she replied. “But why?” “Because you won’t enjoy it anymore. Your conscience won’t let you.” I’m kind of hoping that girl has that same feeling with the stuff she buys on my friend’s cards.

Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” an Alzheimer’s memoir.

PUT ON THE HAT

A half, bent over, old man was moving very slowly in front of me as I walked to the gym this morning.  Every, single step he took was arduous, deliberate and pained me to watch.  Even though my own step these days lacks some of its’ old spunk, I slowed my pace.  He was working so hard just to put one foot in front of the other that I could not bear to pass him. 

 He was dressed in elegant, pressed dark slacks, with a brand new knitted Polo and had that snappy hat like Frank Sinatra used to wear cocked slightly over his right bushy eyebrow.  However, nothing hung quite right on his humped, misshapen frame.  His outfit would have looked sharp on a younger, stronger man, but on him, the overall effect was rather sad. . .and yet…as I drew up to his side, I realized that he once WAS a younger man. 

 “Good morning!” he bellowed with a voice ten times the size of his body.
“Good morning, to you Mr. Sinatra in that classy hat!”

He stopped.  It was probably just so he could bear the weight of the huge smile that now raised even the edges of his sagged and lined mouth.

“Ya remember his hat do ya?  You’re not old enough but you’re right.  It’s the exact kind he used to wear.”

“Well it looks handsome on you.”  And strangely enough, at that moment he did, indeed look handsome.  “You don’t see men in hats anymore and I rather like them.”

  “Ya know.  Best part of my day now is when I put on the hat.  I figure if my arms can still reach up there and my head can still hold it, it’s gonna be a good day.”

Wow.  At that moment, I felt 17.  He’s the kind of guy we could all use more of.  So if you have someone like that in your life, hang on to them.  If you don’t, just put on the hat.


*Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” an Alzheimer’s memoir.

YOU GO GIRL!!

It started harmlessly enough.  I was trudging in to Target when suddenly I heard the thump-thump beat of some pounding rap music.  Approaching slowly, was a well-used, Chevy with two teenage girls in front.  (It’s a good thing they had the windows rolled down or they might have gone deaf).  By the time we were eye to eye, even the pavement under my feet began to rumble.  So, I did what any other middle-aged woman would do:  I started to dance.

 Now back in the day, I actually had some moves.  Unfortunately, some of the parts on me that used to gyrate now merely grate.  This did not impede my enthusiasm in front of these grinning, gum-smacking, girls, however.  And they did what anyone else would do when confronted by such a spectacle:  they stopped their car and began to whoop and holler, “YOU GO GIRL!”  

So I did.  Now this is not the first time I have behaved in such a manner.  But it has been a long time since the last time.  At least three months, when I was having my teeth cleaned and suddenly Michael Jackson’s, “Beat It,” came on the surround sound.  Despite the fact I was flat on my back and the hygienist had both her hands in my mouth, I managed to move everything that wasn’t tied down.   

 Now ever since my kids were born I have tried very hard to keep this clearly genetic reaction to drums on the QT.  At school functions, I always sit in the back row just in case they play danceable music.   My teens do not understand my impulse to move when Phil Collins kicks it, “In The Air Tonight.”  I do not understand how they can possibly sit still when Santana’s, “Smooth” is grooving.

This morning in church, when my right foot started tapping out the beat, my youngest calmly placed her hand on my knee.  Good thing she didn’t see me at Target.  I worked it all the way through the crosswalk.  With those girls and now several onlookers egging me on, I even did a few turns and began to moonwalk backwards into what I thought were the ENTRANCE doors. 

This is probably a good place to stop.  Just sayin’ that the the next time you see someone dragging their heels a bit–encourage them.  You might just end up with a parking lot full of strangers doubled over in laughter.

CARRY ON

She looks absolutely pitiful; a shadow of the fluffy pup who only yesterday sprung up to her window seat to watch the cars go by.  The vet sent Skylar home today after double knee surgery.  A stiff, plastic Edwardian collar keeps her from licking the long, red-stitched wounds open.  Her tail no longer arches up with its’ Pomeranian plume but droops like a worn out feather duster.  Carefully, as if I am holding a fragile, glass figure, I carry her to the grass to pee.  Her hind paws rest in my palm like tiny rabbit’s feet.    

The sight of her now would make anyone sad—but for this:  She leaves my side, walking on only her two front feet as if she has done this all her life!  She pauses, sighs, then wobbles forward another several yards with both her back legs lifted.  They seem held aloft by invisible strings!  While her gait has a slight back and forth wobble, she moves with a smoothness that amazes me. 

I think of the old saying, “When one door closes another one opens.”  It occurs to me, though, that the other door being open means absolutely nothing if one does not walk through it.  And I think of the many people I know in my life who stand in front of open doors and never even cross the threshold.  They just stand there, not lifting a foot, as if paralyzed.   Aren’t they curious what might be around the corner? 

When I was a teenager and moping around the house, Granny always encouraged me to go do something for others.  ‘I bet Mrs. Tway would love it if you’d offer to water her flowers.”  Her theory was:  If you take a real interest in others, you won’t have time to think about yourself.  It always worked.

It even works for dogs.  Skylar has spotted a butterfly.  She gives chase for only a few feet and collapses in the grass.  Her little, collared head turns in the direction of the butterfly until it disappears and then she looks at me.  Her eyes are sparkling.  I lift her up and hold her close.  She looks around sniffing with anticipation of what might be next.  And so do I . . .and so should we.      

**Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” a memoir of the years before and after her grandmother’s descent into Alzheimer’s.  http://www.helen-hudson.com 

TIME CHANGES EVERYTHING

Everywhere you go nowadays you see ‘kids’ taking care of their elderly parents.  That wasn’t the case when I wrote, “Kissing Tomatoes,” 10 years ago.  At the time, publishers said, “Love the writing but no one will buy it.  Who cares about Alzheimer’s?”  Well, time changes everything. 

Just today, the woman in front of me at the pharmacy counter was waiting for her mother to write a check.  Dowager-humped and small, her shaky hand extended from a wrinkled, arthritic arm.  The wait for all of us was almost interminable.

Every few seconds, the daughter looked around nervously, then straightened her shoulders as if to keep herself from getting the hump her mother has.  She was so embarrassed holding up our line that I made small talk.

“Well, looks like you get to do all the shopping while Mom pays the bills.” 

She brightened slightly.  “Yes, we’ve always loved shopping together.  Just takes longer now.”

“No worries,” I replied.  “We’ll be there ourselves one day.” 

An hour later I dashed back to the same store for something I had forgotten.  The man ahead of me was turning his pockets inside out for change and holding a single bottle of water.

“I just need twelve more cents, right?” he asked in a nervous voice.  He was sweating and his face so flushed, that I feared he might be having a heart attack.

“Goodness,” I said to the clerk, “I’ll pay for his water.”     

“Oh no.  Can’t let you do that,” the man said.  “I have it here somewhere.”  He began searching his back pockets.  “I’m taking care of my mom,” he suddenly blurted.  “Never thought it would be this hard.  She’s driving me crazy.”

“How wonderful,” I replied.  “After all of those years she raised you, now you are caring for her.”

“Yeah, but the only problem is I can’t spank HER!” he laughed.

His car was parked next to mine.  As he jumped behind the wheel, I waved at the old gal next to him.  “Mom!” he yelled, “This lady just paid for my water.”  “How nice,” she said.  “And how nice that your son is looking after you,” I added.  “Oh, not for long,” she confided.  “The doctor said this thing I have will be over very soon.”  I glanced at the man.  He shook his head.  Yeah, time changes everything—especially us.