Days of Dementia: A Case of Mistaken Identity

A few days ago, a lady was using her walker down the hallway and passed in front of grandpa and I. We were in our usual spots - he in his wheelchair and I on the floor beside him. The lady and I greeted each other and smiled and chatted for a few minutes.
"Is this your....grandpa?"
"Yes!"
I was impressed, I usually get 'father.'
"Well, he's a sweetheart. Always pleasant. Never bothers nobody."
"Thank you!" I replied, "He is very sweet."
As she passed in front of him grandpa waved and said hello, as if to emphasize her point. She stopped, smiled and stooped down in front of him.
"Do you know this girl?" she asked. Grandpa gave her a blank stare.
"Do you? Do you know this girl?" She was kind, but insistent. I wasn't sure why this had to be answered, but she wasn't going to let it go, so I pulled myself up on my knees so he could see me better. She started pointing and dragging her finger towards me to draw his attention. "This girl. This girl right here. Do you know her?"
His eyes finally followed her hand and he looked up at me. "Yeah!"
The lady smiled. "Who is she?"
Oh dear.
Grandpa continued his blank stare at me.
"Who is she? Who is she?"
I wanted to intervene, but I didn't. If things had gotten harder on him, I would've, but I also honestly wanted to know who he believed I was. 
"She's..... she's.... she's my daughter-in-law."
"Oh! And do you love her?"
Now grandpa legitimately looked confused. "Of course!" he replied, bewildered. The lady wandered off. Grandpa looked at me as if he was supposed to understand what had just happened. I just smiled and shrugged. We moved on.

For months now, Grandpa has consistently called me his daughter-in-law. Who he believes I am on a day to day basis does vary a bit, but especially within these past six months, especially whenever he does name me to somebody I am almost exclusively his daughter-in-law. My mother.

That's a bit of a mind trip when you think about it from my perspective. :)

And sometimes it's not just in naming me because somebody asked. Sometimes it reveals itself in casual conversation. Take a month ago, for example.
Grandpa was relaying his day to me when he rather suddenly (and very confidently) stated, "Yup, your daddy suuure helped me get that cat out of that barn." I blinked because I was completely stumped. (Notably, not about the part about a cat in the barn, although there was certainly no current context for that at the time either.) He said it with such an air of awareness that I sat there for several minutes trying to figure out if he genuinely knew who I was. I was debating whether or not to ask him when suddenly he finished it out: "Yup, Leonard sure was a great help!"
Ah. Leonard. My mother's father.
I was floored. Despite having heard him reference me as her several times, it still stuns me a bit when it happens - to think that something in me reminds him, or at least triggers something in him, of her.

It was about three months ago now when he suddenly started asking me, "Where's little Sherri? I thought I just heard her. Did you hear her?"
Although surreal to think of myself as about five years old in his mind, my heart warmed. I realized that in his brain I was still a child and probably running around terrorizing the place.
I tried to correct him and explain that, no, I was Sherri. But he just looked at me and laughed. "No, no, no," he said, "little Sherri. She was in the dining room. I just saw her."
Ah, well. Maybe I was behaving enough after all. :)
And it dawned on me later that the age I am now is the age my mother would have been when I was "little Sherri."

And even all the way back to his first trip to his final neurologist and the doctor asked him to introduce us. "This is my daughter-in-law," he said, "and that's my grandson."
I didn't correct him but instead just shook my head at the doctor, although "grandson" was indeed correct. Later Grandpa apparently caught himself and realized what had happened. "I'm so sorry," he said, "I'm so sorry I called you my daughter-in-law. I don't know what happened."

It's okay. I don't mind. I don't mind on any count.

Why would I be bothered, hurt or upset? That you think I'm one of the women that I admire the most? That maybe, just maybe, there is something in me that you see that reminds you so strongly of her? Maybe some tiny piece of my personality brings her to your thoughts? Or maybe instead I remind you of her in her looks? Any of those things, I don't mind. I don't mind at all. I am honored and thrilled and blessed that there's even a remote chance that you might find something in me that you recognize as her.

I don't mind one bit. 

I'll be your daughter-in-law. I'll be your friend that hangs out, or random family member, or whoever you think I am that day as long as you'll let me sit and chat with you awhile. We'll drink coffee and health shakes. We'll people watch. And at the very least, maybe you'll remember me as a friendly face.

Or at the very best, your daughter-in-law.

Days of Dementia: And it's root, root, root for the home team....

This past Thursday night I walked into the nursing home to find my grandfather in the middle of the hallway in his wheelchair, trucker cap on his head and looking alert. This is a bit unusual - I've never seen him wear the cap before, though its been in his room for about a month, and he was in a different section of the hallway than I usually find him in. I caught his eye.
"Hey!" I said enthusiastically, "There you are."
"Hey!" he replied, just as happily, "You're just in time!"
"In time for what?"
"In time for the ballgame!"
I grinned. "What kind of ballgame?" "Baseball? Basketball? Football?"
"Don't know."
"Where's it happening at?"
"Right down there." He pointed down the hallway. My head turned, but I already knew what I would see. I had just come from that direction. A few people in wheelchairs were in the lobby. While they were watching television, no game had been on the screen and the TV wasn't visible from our position. I smiled.
"Who's playing?"
"Don't know."
"Is it baseball?"
"Yeah!" 
"Has it started yet?"
"Not yet. Just about to."

For those who haven't heard, or have only caught the bits and pieces, my grandfather was diagnosed with dementia this past year. It's been a really difficult road full of lots of confusion - and not just on his part, in general. The past eight months or so have been filled with lots of fear, heartache and uncertainty about what's going on, what's right and what's the best way to accomplish it. There have been a lot of factors involved and while it's still an ongoing situation, he is currently in a nursing home that appears to love and take excellent care of him. And that's such an incredible, incredible blessing to us, especially considering Oklahoma is apparently 49th in the nation in terms of nursing home care. Yikes. 

We chatted for awhile about other topics. He kept trying to prop his foot up on the nurses' disposal box on the side of their cart. "I think that's Billy's tool box," he finally said.
"Ah. Then we probably shouldn't mess with it then."

A few minutes later. 
"Look! Here come the stars!"
I glanced back down the hallway. Far at the other end, one man walked slowly along on his walker.
"Anybody I know? Anyone famous?"
"Hog Bellys!"
This is actually what his trucker hat reads. Hog Bellys, Stink Bait Parlor. I have no idea where this cap came from, it just appeared one day in his room. This is something that has super impressed me in the midst of his dementia - he can still read. For a man that doesn't ever really know what's going on, he can still read. In fact, as we were sitting there during this discussion, he pointed out a word on the nurses cart and asked me what it meant. And I had no idea either, because it was some long medical term. But I knew the reason he didn't ask me about the other words was because they made sense to him - scissors, tape, medications, etc. He specifically recognized that he didn't understand what this particular word meant and he wanted to know.
But he will still misunderstand or reinterpret the words he reads. Hence, Hog Bellys, the now famous baseball player.
"Now they're all walking around the bases."

"Just a second grandpa, I'll be right back."
I stepped into his room for a minute and was caught off guard by the television being on his room since it had never been on before. In particular, it was on Thursday Night Football and I immediately understood. Since he had never talked about ball before, I wasn't sure where our sudden baseball game had come from, but now I got it.
In discussions before with various people, we've come to realize that probably most of what grandpa talks about isn't completely made up. Usually there's a connector somewhere, even if it's probably a book or movie he read thirty years ago that we just don't know about or an overheard bit from a conversation earlier in the day. And then his brain just takes a whatever tiny gem of it that gets brought up on a ride.

"Has the game started yet?"
"Nope. They're just walking around the bases."
"That's it? Just parading around the bases?"
"Yup. Maybe they'll get started soon."

We chatted awhile longer and then I headed home for the evening.

If you had told me at the beginning of all of this that eventually I would look forward to my trips to the nursing home, that it would be a joy and that it would be a piece of a puzzle that would begin to fundamentally alter my heart and mind, I probably would have doubted you. And the trips can still be, and will be often, hard. Despite that, however, there has been so much unexpected joy and love in the midst of all the mental confusion and heartache.

I got to watch a baseball game with my grandfather. I had never had the chance - or rather, took the chance - to do that before. The fact that I can say I have now, whether he remembers it or not, thrills my soul.

I hope Hog Bellys hit a home run.