The BK Big Fish
My mom was just 52 when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Talk about news you don’t expect to hear, huh?
Like a lot of people, I didn’t know much about Alzheimer’s, or what my family was in for as my mom’s caregivers. As far as I knew, AD was just a “forgetful” disease. My mom would probably forget my name, or confuse me with my brother, or perhaps she’d forget what a refrigerator was called. It would be stressful, but we’d make it.
Just a few weeks after my wife and I relocated from Denver to western Michigan, we were invited to my parent’s house for dinner. The menu, as it often did, consisted of items from Burger King.
I don’t know what I ate that night. No clue what my wife had. No idea what my dad ordered. But I know my mom had a BK Big Fish. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.
As we sat at the dining room table eating and chatting, I watched and listened to my mom. Her sentences were sometimes confusing, and her words occasionally were jumbled, but it didn’t seem much different than listening to somebody who was sleep-deprived, or stressed.
And then I saw her BK Big Fish. A few bites removed, my mom went to set the sandwich down on her plate. Her hand lowered from her mouth slightly, but then she stopped. She looked at her plate, then at her sandwich. She started again to place it on the plate, but she pulled back, once again. She took another bite, talked to us some more, then tried again.
She looked at the plate, then at her BK Big Fish.
This continued for several minutes. She’d try, then stop, then eat some more. I wanted to help her. I wanted to take that damned sandwich out of her hand and put it on her plate where she wanted it. Instead, I just sat and watched, unsure of where or when I should insert myself into what was taking place.
Finally, after several failed attempts, you could see her truly start to focus. She pushed through the mental block that, by now, we had all noticed, but tried to ignore. You could see the determination in her eyes, as she physically aimed her sandwich, and willed it to where it needed to go.
When the sandwich finally came to rest, it was inches in front and to the side of the plate. I did my best to ignore it, and just carried on my end of the conversation. My dad finally put the sandwich on the plate.
She tried so hard to get it where she wanted it to go, but she just couldn’t make it happen.
I’ll never forget the sinking feeling I had in my stomach that night. I felt defeated, crushed, and afraid. It was a rude awakening for me. If this is how bad it was now, how much worse could it get in the weeks and months ahead?
What were we in store for? What was next?