Jim was well into Stage 4 of Dementia when we flew across the country to spend Thanksgiving with my family (October, 2017). We’d already been to see Jim’s family up north early that summer so I wasn’t expecting to have any issues.

Apparently, his dependence on routines and familiar surroundings disguised his decline in the intervening few months.

Surprise!

It started at the airport. We’d dropped off the car as always at the Park’n Fly which required us to give them a set of keys. Jim was fine as we checked our bags and we went through security but as we stood in line for the flight he started repeatedly pulling stuff out of his pack to check to make sure it was there. Passport, Money, Park’n Fly Receipt, Key Fob.

He asked me, “Where is my other fob?”

“It’s with the Park’n Fly people”

Then he asked, “Where’s the receipt to get the car back?”

“In your hand.”

He’d just finished putting everything back in his bag when he’d start pulling it out all over again to make sure he had everything and the conversation above would repeat itself. To add to the issue, he insists on carrying a few hundred dollars in his pocket – just in case. So not only was he in danger of dropping everything on the floor in the middle of a crowded airport, he was flashing a big wad of bills around and making himself an easy target.

My nerves were shot before we’d passed through the gate to get on the plane.

Even after we finally got safely on in our seats, he checked and rechecked the items in his bag. It was a five hour flight and he rechecked his bag every 10-20 minutes and then again as we were landing. Always with the same conversation looking for his key fob, passport, or Park’n Fly receipt.

I’d love to say that this was just caused by his anxiety about the trip but it went downhill from there. He was completely disoriented. He knew what city we were in and understood that we were in a hotel but he had trouble remembering where he’d put his belongings, even though he unpacked exactly as he always put it when he traveled.

He started messing up his medication. He has never had trouble remembering his medication.

Suddenly I was asking, “Did you take it already?”, “Did you set it out last night?” He sat at my mother’s table for Thanksgiving Dinner at 1 pm and repeatedly reached for the pills in his pocket.

“No Jim, you don’t take those until tonight. This is just lunchtime.”, “Babe, put them back in your pocket, you’ll take them at six tonight.”, “No Babe, you can’t take those now.”

After we flew back home, things mostly returned to normal. Jim was back in familiar surroundings and his physical cues were back in place again. But there were also a lot of little differences. Part of me wondered if he’d had a stroke or had just been anxious about being away from home but as more time passed, I realized that some of the little problems had been there for a while, I just hadn’t noticed the incremental decline.