Damned Spark Plugs

With this disease, time can be your friend if you choose to see it as such. On Friday, I was at my wit’s end. The ups and downs were just too fast and furious to keep up with. Dad was so far out of control, and at times, so far out of touch with reality that I was having a hard time keeping up.

The highlight of my Saturday was receiving a phone call from him late last night (he was upstairs and I was down). He had found my cell phone number on a piece of paper in his bathrobe pocket and thought I was a girl he had met in a nightclub a few days ago. LOL! He called to invite me to come over and spend the night with him! I went upstairs and assured him he must have been dreaming and he drifted off to sleep again.

Today, he woke up and came toward the kitchen. When he saw me, he stopped in his tracks and said, “I know this is going to sound stupid but where the hell are we?!?” A quick look at his face, and the cloud covering it, told me he clearly didn’t know.

I replied, “Four Mile Village in Santa Rosa Beach, Fl. We are in your house… the house you have lived in for 32 years.” Slowly I made my way to him and gently took his arm, leading him to his chair.

He put his elbows on his arms and buried his face in his hands. “Goddamn! Why am I so stupid?” He began to cry as I reassured him that he isn’t stupid, it’s simply his disease causing him to get confused. When he got hold of himself, he asked me what the name of the disease was. I told him Alzheimer’s. “That’s right. I knew that.”
Then he asked, “What is it? What does it do? Please try to help me make sense of all this.” As he stared into my eyes with the most heart wrenching of appeals, I searched frantically to find a way to explain it that he would be able to understand.

Taking a deep breath, I said, “Dad, it’s kind of like the spark plugs in a car. If one or more of them are misfiring, the engine doesn’t communicate properly. The neurons in your brain misfire sometimes. Sometimes they short out. It doesn’t make you stupid, it just makes you forget things and it makes you confused when it happens.”

He gave me a watery smile and asked, “Can’t we get some new spark plugs?”

“I wish it were that simple but it’s not.” I put my arm around him. “There is no cure for Alzheimer’s. There is no way to fix it but the medications you take are slowing it down.”

He turned to me. “This morning when I woke up, I went to the bathroom. While I was standing there, my mind started spinning, thinking about all sorts of things. It began spinning and spinning and spinning till everything ran together. When it finally slowed down, I didn’t know where I was so I came in here. When I saw you, I knew you would know the answers. I knew you would take care of me. You always take really good care of me.” He smiled, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure Dad. You can ask me anything.”

“Who are you married to?”

I softly replied, “Richard.” Dad shook his head and muttered, “Damned spark plugs”. In a flash I knew that we had each made a connection with the others world. It was an illuminating yet frightening insight. But one I am so thankful to have experienced.