Who Let the Cat Out?

The Pink Flamingo was not planning to do this blog.  This evening, about 9PM, my mother called, quite frantic.  My father had let Sam out this morning.  Sam, a 12 year old, has never been out in my life.  My mother was in tears.  All my father mentioned was there were three cats outside this morning.  One was gray.  She panicked.

left to right:  Fred, Belva, Sam (in back)

Fortunately, Sam came in.  His twin, B-2, was in a panic.  So was Belva, shown here.  Sam takes care of Belva, who is quite timid.

The entire family was in an uproar.  The truly sad thing is that my father did not remember what he did, but knew he did it.  He adores the cats.  Now he is terribly upset.  The solution that this does not happen again is to put signs on the doors, reminding everyone not to let the cats and Sadie out, even when they demand it.

Ronald Reagan called Alzheimer's 'the long goodbye'.  Tonight I realized this is exactly what we are dealing with, in a different way.  My grandmother Reidhead had something similar, so we know what to expect.  It is still quite frightening, very upsetting, and terribly sad.

The conditioning has been coming on for several years, but did not become so evident until January, when my father spent 4 days with a blood sugar count around 290 (140 is normal) because his new endocrinologist did not call a badly needed prescription into the pharmacy.  The pharmacy could not release the medication because the dosage was all screwed up.  In order to get it, I just plain old lied.   Unfortunately that, along with his BP, that went up, and one of those little TIA strokes has made the condition much worse.

And so it begins.


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