IKEA

Last Friday I took the morning off and went to IKEA.
Rick was in the office so I could go.

My neighbor who I have rarely seen all winter asked me to go with her. I always love a trip to IKEA. She said she would drive and asked me to be at her house at 9 am.  I thought that was a bit early but what the hell. It is a drive so if we are early we can get some coffee or something.

I get to her door and she doesn't answer. I ring the bell. I knocked.
A neighbor who lives a few doors down from her said, "are you sure she is home?"  I tell him I'm not sure. So I text her and tell her I'm at her door.
Just as I was about to walk away she appears.
She looks confused.
I laughingly say, "You told me to be here at 9 am and I'm here."
She said, "But it's only 8 am Peg"

I look at my watch and it's now 9:05. She asks me to come in and I look at her clocks in the kitchen, both on the wall and her stove. It's after 9 am. So I ask if I woke her. She said no, but she repeats it's only 8a. Now she looks at the clock and says,"Oh my gosh it's 9 am, my clock upstairs says 8 am."
We have a laugh. She gets ready and we leave.

She was drinking a green smoothie that she is telling me is great.
She brings the smoothie to her car. I open my door and get in and buckle up.
She gets in and I do not notice that she doesn't have her smoothie. She told me her GPS wasn't working and I was fiddling with google maps on my phone.
We proceed to drive down the street and her phone rings. She has Bluetooth so she pushes her car button and is talking to her daughter. As we are driving I hear this loud thump. I look in my side mirror because it was like she ran over something. I see nothing. Then we hear another thump and a noise I can not decipher. Her daughter hangs up and I suggest we pull over while still in the neighborhood to see what that was. She gets out and looks confused. I see the smoothie had run down the back window of her Prius. I ask if she put her smoothie on the hood of the car. She slowly turns to me and then you can see her having a light bulb moment as she realizes what she has done and laughs and tells me yes it was her smoothie cup.  I have to say at this point I am a bit concerned. She is acting very odd to me.

We begin the trek to IKEA. She is telling me the way she goes is through Manassas. I am a bit confused but let her do it her way, I mean, she is driving right? I told her the GPS will pick up the way because she says she knows she has to go down rt 29 but that is all she remembers. I tell her I am not familiar with going that way but we'll figure it out, no worries.

She is driving so slow I want to scream. Because of the way her dashboard sits in this Prius I can see her speed. Never ever did we go over 52, even on the highway. She also was riding the lines or in the middle of two lanes. I'd say, Lorri, you are getting a bit too much to the right or left, whichever it was. She would act like she didn't hear me. I was beginning to think she was on something.

She continues to slowly drive to the store scaring the living shit out of me.
I would say, Lorri the next light we have to turn right, you'll want to get over in the right-hand lane. And she wouldn't move. We missed so many turns. It was like she never heard me even though after a few times I began speaking louder.

We finally made it there. We walked around, got the things we were looking for and stopped to have lunch there. She asked me a question and as I was answering she asked me why I was telling her this. I know I looked puzzled. She blurted out, I have dementia. Ah, this was all making sense now. Dear Lord, why didn't I drive? Why would she say she would drive? Why is she driving? When did this happen? I saw her in December and she seemed fine. And at some points that day she seemed fine too but more often than not she wasn't fine.

She told me that time was an issue as were words.
Earlier when telling me something she struggled for a word. I finally said it and she said that's right. I wondered what she meant about time.
Time as in I arrive at your home and you forget it's really 9 am?
Everything is pretty much fine she kept saying. She was seeing a doctor this week that her primary doctor sent her to.
I knew her mom and she had dementia or Alzheimers when I met her. She would be walking down the street in a nightgown and I would say hello and she'd tell me it was such a nice day. I would then suggest we walk together and she would grab my arm and I'd turn her around and bring her home. They had to lock her in the house it had gotten so bad. Now her daughter is like this.

This woman is only 9 years older than me. She is not that old.
Anyway, the ride home was far worse. It took us 2 hours. She kept missing exits. Then she got scared and angry. I suggested she pull over and I could drive for her. She could relax. She was getting angry and scared.
She kept saying no. So after saying it twice, I felt that was enough and I let it go and just prayed we made it home. She missed the parkway, she missed route 66 and then she missed the toll road - we are now headed for Maryland. I begged her to get off an exit and she kept saying, "But I don't know what is there"
I would lie and say I did. I knew we just needed to get off and then get back on again to go the other direction but since that confused her I tried another tactic.
It finally worked.

I came home and Rick asked how my day was. Where do I begin?
I told him everything, like the myriad of things she did that I am leaving out.
But what has stuck with me is that she has this horrible disease. That she is only 9 yrs my senior. That last year she went to Europe alone with a group of strangers. She could no more do that today than my father could. (But my father is 89)

When having lunch she kept asking me why I didn't have the meatballs. I knew then that she forgot I had celiac. So I explained. She said, oh yeah that's right. Then she mentioned it later when she had a cookie and she offered me one.
I said No thanks I don't want one right now." I did not say a thing about why I didn't want it because I didn't want to upset her. I just said no thank you. I also didn't want to make her embarrassed or feel badly in any way.

Today I go to open my front door and there sat a birthday card and a box of girl scout thin mints. So she remembered I have a birthday coming up but not that I can't have the cookies (my favorite GS cookies no less) I called to thank her for the cookies and card. She said she couldn't remember when my birthday was but that it was coming up. She's right it is in March. I said she was correct and I loved the surprise and the cookies. I didn't need to say anything else.

It breaks my heart to see her like this. But more importantly, I am concerned that she is driving. I thought about calling her daughter and I go back and forth. I know her daughter took over her money earlier this year so maybe she knows how bad it is. She sees her and talks to her daily. I haven't said anything but I feel like I should. I'm torn. I know taking away her keys will kill her but she could also kill herself and someone else the way she drives! When she told me she spent too much money last year with her trips, lectures and the like her daughter had a fit and said do I have to handle your money? She laughed and said, "fine" I never in a millon years thought it was dementia.

People always say, "age is just a number" Screw that. It's more than that. It sucks. Your mind, your body is all changing just like puberty only worse, its reverse.
I have a young spirit but I'm damn old. The only time this is considered young is if I die. Like this week when the actor Bill Paxton died. Same age as me. Then it's, "oh he was so young" But they don't tell me that when I get my discount on Thursdays at the grocery store. 😀