You wouldn’t think there could be one, really. How can losing your short term memory be anything but annoying?
You don’t have to have dementia to have a faulty short term memory, or be particularly old to be affected. Someone in our house keeps leaving the dishwasher open and standing on the landing wandering what she came upstairs to get. I’d tell you who it is if I could remember. The standing on the landing thing is exercise for the over fifties, I don’t need to do step and tone at the gym, I do it all the time in the house.
I have become so accustomed to saying everything twice twice for my mother, I don’t even get mildly annoyed when she asks me something I’ve just told her. Circular conversations no longer bother me at all and she doesn’t get annoyed because she doesn’t know she’s doing it, she did once but she’s forgotten that now too.
Whilst memory loss has now been accommodated in our pattern of conversation, I would never have believed, other than not having to try to find a new topic of conversation, when every utterance is a surprise, that there were benefits to the condition, until Saturday.
The S&H and wife were coming for the day so I was in the bathroom early when the phone began ringing. The other half dashed down stairs just in time for it to stop and then back upstairs at the trot to answer his mobile. There’s only one thing at present that can make all the phones go off at once, so in moments, dripping, I was clustered by the phone. The senior carer was wondering whether to call an ambulance and was reassured that she should not even though my mother was having a funny turn, almost certainly a mini stroke, and could be heard whispering weakly in the background.
Over the course of the next hour, on and off the phone, interrupted by the S&H on the phone to say they were on the way, the drama unfolded. I spoke to my mother who whispered that she didn’t want us to go, I spoke to the carer who was sure we couldn’t arrive in time and so on and so forth. Eventually the carer managed to get my mother, who had begun proceedings slumped over the dining table seeing flashing multi-coloured lights, into her chair in the sitting room and finally dozing off.
So, with plentiful condition updates, we continued with the day as planned. My mother went to sleep in the chair, the carer changeover happened when the carer was sure demise was not imminent, we welcomed the guests, I gave them first the wedding album then lunch and then we spent an hour, at least, looking up restaurant menus on line for the birthday dinner for the S&H. We finally decided on a venue but the most local branch was fully booked so we had to book one some miles away.
I was in a quandary, to dine or not to dine? I phoned my mother. She was bright as a button, telling me all about her sister, who is 99 and about to go into a care home. I wouldn’t say my mother is triumphant, but she is. If you’re the right age it’s the ultimate one-upmanship, as in: I’m still in my own home, with staff, ner ner nee ner ner.
Then she told me about the paper (delivered every Saturday by a neighbour) and the weather (bright but with the promise of showers) and the garden (floriferous but in need of weeding) and the shopping (salads disappointing, cold salmon passable) and the carer (in the study, reading.) Eventually I asked how she was. ‘Fine’ she said ‘why?’
She had forgotten all about nearly dying a few hours ago. She had, as always, no apparent lingering effects from the mini stroke. As she couldn’t remember that it had happened she was completely unconcerned about any close calls, ill health or anything untoward at all. As far as she was concerned it was a perfectly normal Saturday.
And there is the one wonderful kindness of memory loss. If you thought you had had a stroke a few hours ago, what state of mind would you be in? Me too. I did have a stroke over thirty years ago and still worry, it was unmistakeably alarming. But my mother couldn’t remember it had happened and therefore as far as she was concerned it hadn’t happened at all. In the midst of all that memory loss has taken from her, a wonderful and unexpected blessing.
In dementia sometimes you can’t even remember to be frightened.
So we all went out for dinner and that was nice too.
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JaneLaverick.com – surprise sunshine