Rough Patch

Mom’s trip to Washington DC was uneventful. She enjoyed the trip although she couldn’t name all of the grandchildren that she saw (there were six of them—three belonged to my brother with whom she was staying and three came up to visit one day from a few hours away. When questioned she wasn’t sure how many had made the trip to see her.

The other noteworthy incident took place the evening of her arrival. Her plane arrived a little past 9:30 at night. My brother, John, picked her up and they were back at his house having a bite (Mom hadn’t eaten since lunch) when she asked how she got there. When John said she arrived by plane, Mom insisted she didn’t have a suitcase. Of course, she did, and John told her so. I imagine that John must have wondered what he was in for after that exchange.

The day Mom returned home I started her on the memory patch. The technical name for the medication is Exelon. It is supposed to be like Aricept minus the nauseating side effects. We tried the patch before Christmas but either Mom caught a little flu bug or the patch nauseated her, so, after consulting the doctor, I decided to postpone the new regimen until after her trip.

Deciding on the patch was not an easy decision. If the medication works you aren’t supposed to notice anything. It does not improve memory, it’s just supposed to keep things status quo or slow the progression. It also costs around $200 a month. Mom has some money, but she’s far from wealthy. She’s spending down her reserves to live in her retirement apartment. She has enough money for several years, but should she need a higher level of care, her money will go fast. After weighing the options I decided I needed to try it.

In the meantime I applied for Medicare prescription drug coverage to help with some of the cost. I just received a letter that Mom will owe a penalty since she did not sign up for prescription drug coverage as soon as she was eligible. The logic of that penalty escapes me. She has paid for all of her medications out of her pocket for the past several years. Now that she is going to pay for the insurance, the government wants to penalize her for not having the insurance in the past. I don’t get it.

The patch is another story. This medication that is supposed to help people who are having memory issues (it’s prescribed for Alzheimer’s patients and those with dementia) needs to be applied to a different spot on the body each day. The same spot cannot be used for fourteen days. I suppose I should be grateful that this medicine exists, but I can’t help but wonder what kind of twisted mind thought up the application plan. Mom isn't capable of keeping track of fourteen different locations on her body and which one was used when. To help her out I created a calendar that would tell her exactly where to put the patch each day. The first week or so I went to her apartment and helped her with the application. Then I started calling her every morning to walk her through the process. While the plan is not executing flawlessly, it seems to be working well enough.

Or is it? I took her grocery shopping this afternoon. She could not decide which package of toilet paper to buy, so I suggested that if she could wait a few days, I would buy a jumbo pack from Costco and give her one of the individual packages. She agreed. We went through the last three aisles in the store. One our way to the check-out line we passed the paper products again. “Oh, I forgot to get toilet paper,” she said as she grabbed a package of Charmin.