Waiting by the Phone

Grandma's sense of time has gotten even worse and now she seems to be ever more confused. I made her a nice, color chart of the pills she needs to take in a day, including pictures of all of them and special directions like which ones should be taken with food. Even with the visual reminder, she is still taking barely half of her prescriptions.

Today she had a doctor's appointment, so I reminded her last night to at least attempt getting the info into her brain. "Oh, no. I can't go. I have company coming tomorrow! Two of the girls I grew up with are coming to visit. I can't miss them!"

"Who?"

"Julia and Helen, they lived at #8 and I lived at #12 and they're coming over at 10am. I can't go to the doctor and miss them."

I'm a little skeptical of this plan and Aunt Dee is too. We wonder where she came up with this and if these two women are even still alive. On the bright side, as we guessed, Grandma forgot about her friends by morning and let Aunt Ellie take her to her doctor's appointment as planned. (Even though she has no recollection of going out. An hour after Aunt Ellie brought her home she called her back, "Do I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow?")

But, Julia and Helen are stuck in her brain now. At 5:30pm, "Where are they? They were supposed to be here 3 hours ago. You think they'd call."

At 8:40pm, "They called and were supposed to be here a half an hour ago. I don't know what's taking so long." (Nobody called).

It's kind of heartbreaking how she's so excited for this visit from her old friends and it's not going to happen. I try to soften the blow. "It's pouring out and they said the roads are flooded. They'll probably call tomorrow and arrange to come on a day with nicer weather."

"Yeah, that's a good idea. I'm going to bed then."