Something's Different

How is it that Lewy can remember his pills, but he can’t remember where the bathroom is?

Actually, he is stuck on the pills. Every 30 minutes or so…Ain’t it time for some pills?

In 1996 a year before my mother died she told me that Daddy was “different”. She said she really could not put her finger on it exactly, but something wasn’t right.In my Dad’s family, old age dementia was batting 1.000. Not one of them that I ever knew was close to sane. The younger members of the family, including myself in my 20’s, have battled schizophrenia. Hell, several of us have papers to prove it.

When your parent gets diagnosed with dementia, you start looking for past clues. You Google for Lewy Body and you hope to find a friendly voice out there that knows where you are. I can’t say that insanity begets dementia, but apparently one of the very early signals is acting out in your dream state.

When I was a kid, Daddy used to get in fights in his dreams and would punch holes in the walls. It got so bad Momma was afraid to sleep in the bed with him. He continued to do this off and on, sometimes with years in between. Then Lewy would smash the wall again.

When Momma died, I insisted That Daddy move in with us. He was perfectly self sufficient and resisted, but I refused to accept no for an answer. I knew that he was having issues, (although I had never seen it) from that 30 second talk with my mother the summer before.

That was late Spring in 1997.