I drop my father and Jenny off at the entry Neurology department while I park the car. The lot is massive, even on the day before Thanksgiving it is nearly full at 10:00AM. I wonder how many others are seeing doctor Bozoki for the same reason we are. I study the faces of others parking their cars, are they stressed like me? Do they worry about doing right by their parents? They probably live with their parents and take care of them in their own homes, that’s what Midwesterners do. They carry around an unshakable goodness. I fear I have lost that goodness. That New York has corrupted me and now I'm too wrapped up in my own nonsense. Overly concerned about stuff that doesn't matter. Should I touch up my highlights? Where are we going for New Year's? Does my Rolex need a shine?
I pass a stranger on the way in. He looks to be my father’s age and he is sporting head-to-toe Patagonia although he isn’t hiking, he is just getting by in Michigan. That’s just what people wear.
“Hello!” I say overly cheerful but make no eye contact. I am half New Yorker, half Michiganian.
“How’s it goin.”
I don’t answer and keep walking, feeling awkward in my high heeled boots and patent leather bag. I'm an outsider in my hometown. Just a fleeting visitor here to press a Bandaid over a gaping wound. Mr. Patagonia can probably see right through me. I pick up the pace and my stilettos dig tiny holes next to his deep tracks, like a bird hopping beside a bear. I slip and slide several paces until finally giving in and stepping inside of them, allowing them to carve my path.
I wonder if my father knows him. In our town of 40,000, those that have made to their mid-seventies tend to know each other, or have at least have heard of each other. My father no longer remembers his friends. That is, unless we name them in a pre-Alzheimer’s context. My father no longer asks about Fran and Steve, or his ex girlfriend Lois who he dated for 4 years. He never inquires about people by name unless we prompt him. I doubt these days, he remembers our names. But I don’t ask. My sisters and I simply exist around him. We are present for him. I could be Stephany or Jenny or Lois or his sister Mary. It doesn’t matter anymore. All I care about is that he feels safe around me, and that we can still laugh. All that matters is that he feels I am here. That is the best I can hope for.
When I enter Dr. Bozoki’s office Jenny and Dad are seated in the waiting room and the receptionist is already typing his history into the computer. She asks me for his health insurance card and I remove it from my father’s pocket. My father has carried the same wallet for 25 years. It’s made of smooth brown leather that has permanently molded into the rounded shape of his thigh. I open it to discover only four things inside. His license, original Medicare card, Post-it with emergency contact information, and a withered Sears family photo taken before the divorce. In his driver’s license photo he is handsome and smiling broadly--A self-assured pre-Alzheimer’s smile. There is no money or bankcards inside. On his emergency contact Post-it, I cross off his ex-girlfriend’s phone number and pencil in my own.
We let him carry this wallet out of habit.
It’s one of the last few symbols of responsibility he has left. On this trip he has just surrendered another symbol, his keys. He’s given up on unlocking his front door.
“You do it,” he instructs, handing them over before even attempting. Though somehow, he still seems to find comfort in carrying them. He absentmindedly taps them throughout the day—a security reminder. We leave these things with him. They are comfort clues. Even though his wallet has nothing of value inside and the front door to his room is always left unlocked. There is nothing sacred about my father’s world anymore. Just this morning, he emerged from the bathroom with his pants halfway down his hips and seemed totally OK with it. Even though we might not have been, but are so badly trying to be.
“Did ya fill out the sur-vee hon?” the receptionist chirped. She had a frosted look to her, with coral lips and shimmery blue eyes. Her blonde hair was swept up in a modified beehive. She was a Midwestern version of Flo, from Alice.
“To the best of my ability,” I said as I handed over the 12-page questionnaire. I noticed the gold-dipped maple leaf dangling from a thin chain across her speckled clavicle.
“Thank you dear. Now just have a seat. We’ll call ya, okee dokee?”
She retrieved my paperwork with a liver-spotted hand and smiled at me between gum chews. I half expected her to say, “Now kiss my grits!”
But she didn’t. She just chewed and smiled.
10 minutes later my father is perched on the doctor’s office examining table as he has done a million times before. At this stage, he has forgotten all the other times. This morning I have reminded him on four separate occasions that we are seeing his new neurologist and he seems pleased. He does not know why we are here, but he seems comforted knowing someone is looking after him.
The examining room is no more than 100ft squared, with fluorescent lights cascading down, casting shadows under our eyes. We all appear sickly in this room. Jenny sits next to my father and when she moves to hug him the wax paper crinkles softly.
“Excited to have a specialist onboard?”
“I guess so," he answers, raising his eyebrows and smiling beyond her. “Why are we here again?”
“We’re here finding out how the Neurologist can help you,” I say.
“Oh, good.”
“Do you remember her name, Dad?”
He looked at me and lowered his brows, a concerted effort too pluck Dr. Bozoki’s name from his cobwebby mind.
“Hm. I know his name sounds like--”
“Her name.”
“Right. Her name…Her name sounds like something funny. I think it rhymes with a ‘b’… I mean starts with a ‘B.’ Boz. Booze. Bozziiii…”
Jenny and I waited, allowing him to mentally de-archive.
“Bozakia!”
“Close.” I corrected him. “It’s Bozoki. Her name is Dr. Bozoki.”
“Oh, okay. Of course it’s not Bozokia.” He began laughing, which caused Jenny and I to join in though we didn’t get the joke.
“What’s so funny?” Jenny asked.
“Well, Bozakia means something uh, interesting in Greek.” He said as he slapped his knee and leaned back so far he nearly smashed his head on the Monet replica behind him.
“What does it mean?”
“It means….” He was laughing and tearing this time. Sometimes the anti-depressant meds would send him into these random fits of laughter that were uncontrollable, but nevertheless welcomed.
“…Boobies!”
The disease has humored him. I don’t remember my father laughing until he cried when we were kids. This is a new development that keeps us all, ironically, sane.
“Dad, make sure to call her that when she walks in,” Jenny said sarcastically.
“Yeah, say ‘nice to meet you Dr. Bozakia,’” I add, making a squeezing gesture with both hands in the air, “honk honk!”
The three of us project inappropriate bursts of laughter outside the confines of Examining Room A—piercing levity through the seriousness of the clinical setting.
“We better quit before we get kicked out of here,” Dad announces between gasps.
Nearly an hour passes with no Dr. Boobies and we are all growing restless. My father has focused his attentions on the ceiling, panning up as if he were watching a bird.
“You okay Dad?”
“There seems to be a window open.”
“It’s just the air conditioner. For some reason the leave it on in the middle of November.” I remove my raccoon scarf and place it around his neck.
“Oooooooo,” he purred, eyes wide. He pulled at the tiny hairs grazing his chin in delight. “Feels nice!”
I fastened it around his neck and sat back down. He twirled the pelt around his neck several times and continued to Ooooo.
I reach for my camera. These days photo ops were few and far between. Especially now since he’s lost the ability to smile into the lens. So we shoot candid moments caught on the fly—regardless of uninspiring backdrops we snap away: The lunch table at Independence Village, the interior of my rental car, the examining room at the doctor’s office. Each picture is impromptu, encapsulating shreds of happiness. His spirit plays hide-and-seek with us at the most random times. Dad is unexpectedly witty and we do all that we can to immortalize him.
He stops twirling the pelt around his neck and a look of concern spreads across his face.
“Do you want me to take it off Dad?”
“No…but seriously tell me,” he begins, his voice thick with worry.
“Do I look gay?”
----------
The dreaded mini-mental exam.
I knew this was coming and I knew Dad would fail. The question was, how badly since the last time? How much had he declined, mentally, in the past six months? I wanted to protect him, to whisper the answers from across the room. This could have worked because he kept focused in my direction the whole time. But unfortunately, he was fixated on the top of my head rather than my face. Either that or he was staring at the water lilies of the faux Monet. Nevertheless he was looking in my direction but I know he couldn’t see me. Our efforts to cheat on the mini-mental exam would be in vain. So instead I just sat there, telepathically beaming the answers to him, which didn’t work out so well.
“I’m going to name three objects, “Dr. Bozoki began. “First repeat them after me, then hold on to them because I am going to ask you to recall them later.”
“Uh-oh.” Dad replied, anticipating failure.
“Just repeat after me: Apple. Table. Penny.”
Silence.
“Just repeat the words,” the doctor reminded. “Apple…Table…Penny.”
“Oh. I’m supposed to say something?
“Yes. Repeat the three words I just said.”
“Oh. Okay. Table?…Able?….I mean Apple…Table…Penny?”
“Good. What year is it?”
“Oh God.” Dad smiled to himself in embarrassment. “I always get this one wrong.”
Dr. Bozoki waited in silence, focused on her clipboard.
“Nineteen...fifty…eight?”
Jenny and I winced at each other from across the examining room.
“Now what are the three items I asked you to remember?”
“Oh geeze…”
Less than two minutes passed and the items had already faded into the quagmire of his mind. The seconds slipped by painfully.
“I’ll give you a hint, the first is a fruit, the second is furniture, and the third is a coin.”
“Pear, dime, blonde.”
The doctor separated my Dad’s responses with neutral OKs. Meanwhile I was mentally calculating his score--Cringing every time he got the answers wrong. Dad answered most questions with uncertain, yet rationalized guesses. Deductive reasoning skills were clearly damaged but still in better shape than his practically non-existent short-term memory.
“What season is it?”
“Well…it’s snowing outside….And we are heading into fall…I mean winter… It’s winter!”
“OK. What month is it?”
“December.” He was close; it was the end of November, partial credit for that one.
“What day of the week is it?”
“Um….Wednesday?
A middle of the week guess made sense. But it was Monday.
“Where are we?”
“In a doctor’s office.”
I smiled at Jenny and mouthed “Yay.” One answer 100% right.
“What is the name of the building we are in?
Dad scanned the room for clues--details, anything to make sense of his surroundings.
“We are in some sort of…complex? Like a building? With offices. An office building!”
“Where is it located?”
MSU, MSU, MSU, I mentally beamed to him. If anything he’ll remember MSU. We went to college here, he went to college here. This campus was our playground. Now, we bring him here to jolt his memory back to happier times. Please know this answer. Please remember.
“The University?”
“Yay Dad! Go green!” just flew out of my mouth although I wanted to cry. I didn’t care if he got all of the other answers wrong. He remembered us today, and he still held strong to the memory of so many happy moments we shared growing up on campus. Hold on to the important things Dad. Please stay with us here. Don’t let this go. If you let this go I don’t know how I’ll be able to cope…
“The University.” He said confidently.
“Michigan. State. University!”
Back in the car on the way home I tuned my Ipod to the Beatles and sang Hey Jude at the top of my lungs, hoping Dad would chime in and forget what had just happened in the examining room. But it didn’t work.
“I think I failed that one.”
“You don’t get graded Dad. The test is meant to assess the stages of your PCA.”
“I thought I had Posterior Cortical Atrophy?”
“You do.”
“But why did she say it was a cognitive thing?”
“Because it’s affecting the way your mind works.”
“But I thought there was something was wrong with my posterior…Can somebody please explain to me…in a clear way…what the hell is going on?”
The thing was, we had explained this to him. We had explained it a thousand times and he used to understand. Back in the day he used to accept it. But now he forgets that he has been told and he proceeds to rip the Band Aid off a wound that never heals--forcing us to break the news each time we finish a doctor’s appointment. And with every surprised response, my heart is newly broken.
