Hi Mumsnetters
I've name changed for this as the post is rather outing. I started a thread a few weeks ago after suspecting that my mum may have Alzheimer's/Dementia. Since then, (or this evening rather) I think my suspicious are right and I must face up to what is to come. (Sorry for long read, just wanted to get it all out).
To give an outline of things I've noticed so far :
- Odd behaviour/slight changes that are a bit unusual for my mum. For example, we met up to go for a walk last week, and she suggested she would stop off and get some sandwiches and food from a nearby M&S. I was really looking forward to having some nice food. She turns up with a tupperware box with a lot of home made cakes, some mini sausage rolls, mini sausages and oranges. I know it's food, but there wasn't really enough for a proper lunch for us all, and all the cakes were not appropriate for a lunch. She has days where she is rather distant. I've rang her in the past and she seems disinterested in speaking to me and is busy doing a puzzle or task. She sometimes doesn't reply with a 'x' after messages which she always used to do. She ignores text messages. Then the other night she rang me and was on the phone for a long time. It felt like she wouldn't end the call at an appropriate time and I felt bad for ending the call but was getting late.
- Asking odd questions, or things that don't appear to be in place. We went to a museum a few weeks ago for my DD's birthday. It was about a 2 hour drive and we'd be there all day. She then asks the day before ' 'Are we having lunch in hometown?'.
- Confusion. - So this is where it finally dawned on me this evening. Had one of those moments whereby something clicks in your mind and you know you know. My mum purchased some tickets last week. Now, the lady selling the tickets on Ebay was being rather difficult (and dumb!) because she sent my mum two tickets, but the third part of the third ticket was missing. I saw what my mum had printed out, so knew exactly what she needed. My mum messaged this woman numerous times explaining the situation, and kept asking for the third part of the ticket. This woman just kept ignoring my mum's question and so I reached out to the woman myself and she sent me two tickets (We needed three). My mum said that the barcode on the ticket this woman sent me was different to the one she had, so must have been the missing ticket. This evening, I called my mum and asked her to confirm the barcode numbers so we had everything ready for tomorrow. She really struggled to understand what I was asking her to do. As a process of elimination, I wanted to see if the barcode for one of her tickets was the one I didn't have. She was very confused (to be fair, it was a confusing situation as there were two barcodes per ticket) but could easily be figured out by reading out each part of the ticket. There were long pauses in between our conversation and when I kept asking her a question to see which ticket she had, she would repeat with 'Do you want me to read it out again?'. At that point, I almost burst into tears because I know my mum would have been able to understand what I wanted her to do last year, and it was confirmation that something was very wrong. She just didn't seem to have the mental capacity to understand what I was asking of her.
Sorry for the long post...I just don't know what to do, or who to turn to. Should I go and speak to a doctor or a charity about what to expect? I feel very very lost and quite devastated. We are meant to be going away tomorrow and was really looking forward to it but now I just can't stop thinking about the future and what's going to happen.
TIA x