Is it Alzheimer's? That's the looming first question for Childster and Oldster alike. At least, it was for me. The thing that scared me too much to really focus on. I procrastinated on the research. I soooooo didn't want it to be Alzheimer's. And it wasn't. But it was just as bad.
My Dad's girlfriend told me to come and stay for a week to ten days. She told me that when I came for 2 or 3 days, my Dad "rallied" and I wasn't really seeing the whole picture. Boy was she right. He is a great rallier. But he couldn't keep it up for a week. It was a hard week, watching him in slow motion, repeating stories, forgetting sentences half way through, but happy to see me.
I am a researcher; that is, I've done a lot of strategic and market research. Basically, I'm a Googler extraordinaire. So once I got up my courage, of course I relied on these half-baked skills to help in my approach.
I started by writing down all of my Dad's symptoms, everything that seemed a little "off." I kept the list and added to it over the course of that week. Everything from eating in slow motion to not being able to turn as he walked to losing his train of thought mid-sentence. I referred back to this list often and was glad I had it. It turned out to be extremely useful in researching his symptoms.
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