Well neither illness or bad guys killed her, which is very good news. But I was very happy that Jeri called her yesterday afternoon.
When I arrived at the house, she was lying on the couch, with a bouquet of orchids at her head and another at her feet, as well as a potted flower plant next to her. If she hadn't been talking to Jeri, I might have thought she was laid out for her funeral!
We had a couple of hours before her appointment, so we sat around chatting. I had not realized that when she said that the police had come out to talk with her about Faux Tom that an officer had been in the house when the scam artist called for the last time. She didn't know Faux Tom's phone number because it showed as "blocked call" on her caller I.D., so the officer asked her to keep the guy on the line so they could trace the call, which I guess they did. She told him what a bad guy he was for trying to cheat an old lady out of so much money and how he should be ashamed of himself. I'm sure he is drowning in remorse!
She has an image of the guy "quaking in his boots" since she told him that the police know about him. Somehow, I doubt it! But hopefully she has heard the last of this--and that she's learned a bit about latter day scams from all of this.
At the appointed time, we went to the doctor's office and it was really clearly evident that while she can go for lab work or eye appointments by herself, she just can't go to the internist alone. She just can't remember anything. She was also very pleased with herself for getting away with not taking one of her prescribed medications when it ran out, but then the doctor explained that it was to keep her from having heart problems.
Once a long time ago, the doctor told her she was not really a candidate for a heart attack. My mother has taken that to mean that she has no chance of having a heart attack and she can do whatever she wants and not worry. The doctor explained that that wasn't quite right. She relutantly agreed to take the medication again.
But she can't remember any of the after care instructions. She went into the lab for blood work and told them she was there to pick up her medication. And she must have asked me a dozen times why she had to take Motrin, if she had to see the doctor again, if she had to have an x-ray. I finally wrote it all out for her and hope she can remember where she put the piece of paper.
After dinner we watched a Criminal Minds marathon (like me, she likes the show). When the second show ended, I asked her if there was anything she wanted to see. She picked up the newspaper, looked at the TV section, said "Criminal Minds is on. Do you like that?" and when I said I did, she told me what channel it was on (the one we'd been watching Criminal Minds on for the past two hours!)
I think there is a bit of "sundowners" about all of this since this morning she was just fine and her memory much more sharp than it had been last night. We talked politics, we talked about faux Tom, we talked about my father. She even told me a story I'd never heard before, about the early days of her marriage to my father when she and my grandmother used to take horse back riding lessons and take horses through Golden Gate Park out to the beach for a barbeque. I vaguely remember her riding a horse once, but I had no idea it had been such a big deal.
Bottom line -- she's feeling better, her memory is shot, but no more shot than previously and she's still just fine about living independently.
She has suggested that we both read a book called "A Bittersweet Season: Caring for our Aging Parents." She felt that she could learn something about getting old, in case she started having those symptoms and that I could learn how to deal with those symptoms in case she ever developed them.
Sigh.
I sent this note to Facebook via cell phone last night:
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