Memoir Lost

A couple of days ago Jon spoke to Lugia, Leola's caregiver. She reported Leola still is leaving the house about 30 times a day requiring one of them to get her and bring her back in. In his usual direct way, Jon asked her if this meant Leola wouldn't be able to stay there any longer, because if that was what she was trying to tell us, we would like to know now so we can come up with plan C. She insisted, no she can stay, but Leola might need a change in medication. Apparently one day Lugia found Leola in her room pacing back and forth like a rat in a maze. Jon and Lugia talked with the doctor and a medication change was made. Since I am out of the loop on her care these days, I don't know what the medications were/are.

In the middle of the night last night, Leola got up to use the bathroom and must have grabbed onto her 6 ft bookshelf to steady herself. It came crashing down, splintering into shards, but fortunately she wasn't hurt and the shelving unit didn't have much in it. Obviously, the crash woke up the whole house and all the residents creating mayhem for all of them. Jon was told about the incident when he went to see her today to bring her some of the clothes we went through last weekend.

When I asked him how she was, he was quiet.

He said, "She seemed sedated. She hardly even got out of her chair."

"Did she like seeing the clothes you brought?"

"She recogonized some of them, but she didn't really care that much. Lugia told me she needs help dressing herself now. Otherwise she puts things on in the wrong order or has too many layers on - as though she forgets she already put on a slip and puts on another one. Or else she forgets to take off her nightgown and just dresses over it. I don't know."

I could tell the visit upset him. "She asked me if I was her husband. When I told her I wasn't, she said, 'Well who are you?'" he said.

He went on to say that when he arrived she was reading the autobiography she had written 10 or 15 years ago. She used to read and reread it a lot during the summer when she was living with us. She asked us almost every day if we had read it, too. Of course we had. Now however, she didn't remember she had even written it. In fact, she asked Jon if he wrote it. She had always been so proud of writing that little memoir and now she doesn't recall it. It seems there are thousands of small losses in this process.