Ron has been having several instances of forgetfulness over the past couple of weeks and complaining of a “fuzzy” head – not quite dizzy but not normal either. On Friday, July 4th, it took three of us to get him into bed and Saturday he did not remember any of it. His blood pressure on Friday night was very low. I stayed awake and took it every 15 minutes until it started coming back up. On Saturday night, I found him on his knees by the bed. Although he said he had not fallen it took four of us to get him into bed. We went to my family reunion in KC on the 6th and several people asked if he was OK. My mom, observing him sleeping, told my niece that she sure hoped that sleeping was all that he was doing.
Monday, the 7th, I took him to see Dr. Heady and he appeared to be acting normally. His blood pressure seemed to be normal and he stayed awake for most of the visit and drive time. We got home about 11:00 am and he had to be at another doctor’s office at 1:40 to have his blood work done. He fell asleep in his chair and I had difficulty waking him. In fact, by the time he was awake, I was taking his blood pressure, Jenny was taking his pulse, and Amy was taking his sugar. He didn’t understand what all the fuss was about because he was “fine” and said he was just sleeping.
Several times during the weekend he appeared to be having difficulty staying upright in his scooter and had difficulty holding eating utensils. Every time I’d ask him if he was OK he got irritated with me. Jenny was concerned about him too and wanted him to go to the ER. He was afraid they’d keep him if he went and then I’d miss the family reunion.
On Wednesday, the 9th, I told the infectious disease nurses about what had been going on and they were quite concerned. I did stop one of his medications (Benicar) on the doctor’s advice and Ron’s blood pressure did come up a bit but the fuzziness in his head has stayed.
Friday night, the 11th, he had praise team practice at the church and I was also working there to help set up for a Saturday garage sale. On our way home, he said “Tomorrow morning we’ll take Maisey to the groomer and then go get a sandwich. What do you want to do after that?” I said I’d be working all day at the sale and did he want to stay at the church all day. He said no, that he thought he’d just stay home.
Saturday morning I discussed with him the plan for the day – take Maisey to the groomer’s, work at the sale, and could he watch Isaiah at noon so Amy could get her nails fixed. We probably spent 15-20 minutes talking before I loaded Maisey into her carrier and I left.
About an hour later, I got a call from Ron.
Ron: where are you?
Me: at the church.
Ron: you didn’t come back after me.
Me: huh? You said you didn’t want to sit up here all day.
Ron: when did I say that?
Me: last night as we were leaving.
Ron: where were we last night?
Me: the church. You had practice and I helped set up for sale. Oh, Marie is in the hospital.
Ron: who is Marie?
Me: the groomer…
Ron: did you go down there? Where’s Maisey? Oh, did you take her?
Me: no, Ron, I just went down there for the fun of it. Of course I took her.
Me: (finally realizing he was confused) are you waiting for me to come take you to church? Are you ready for church?
Ron: yes
Me: it’s Saturday.
Ron: oh. Guess I’ll go back to bed.
Naturally I was concerned so I called Amy and told her that she might want to take Isaiah with her. When she was getting ready to leave Ron asked her what time her nail appointment was. That is the only thing he remembered from our discussion.
On Monday, the 14th, I had Isaiah as Amy had to leave before 6:00 am to enroll him in latchkey. I went into the bedroom and the TV was on but not the cable box. I told him that it was hard on the TV to leave it on like that and he said he'd been watching it until he heard me leave. I said I'd not gone anywhere but Amy had left to go enroll Isaiah. Oh... Fifteen minutes later, Ron asked why I had Isaiah and I told him. As we were getting ready to leave (about 30 min later) he asked me if Amy was up. I said she was still gone.
I decided he needed to see the doctor so I made an appointment for that day. She gave him a cognitive memory test and he only got 17 right out of 30. Dr. Alvarado said that he should have scored higher and wanted him to have an MRI of his brain to see what was going on. At the very least she thought he was having some vascular changes.
The MRI was scheduled for Wednesday, 7/16.
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