My Mom, within the past five months, has gone to three medical appointments that did not exist on those dates at those places. For one, she drove to an optometrist, which was closed, when she actually had an appointment at the hospital for a CT scan. For the second, she drove to her local provider’s office where she was not scheduled when her appointment was actually for the rescheduled CT scan at the hospital in another town. The third time was a week ago when she again drove to her local provider but was not scheduled for an appointment there at all.
I also noticed yesterday that she has not reordered checks for her checking account. I had shown her the reorder page in her checkbook two months ago but she is still out of checks and seems to be either unable to order them or unwilling to.
On Saturday she purchased four bouquets of flowers for gifts and left them laying in a dish rack without any water, I found them on Sunday and cut the stems back and put them in a vase to try to save them. She has no idea why she didn’t put them in water on Saturday.
Last Friday, we went for a drive, and at the restaurant drive through, she watched a man in a van order and then said, “The man in the big thing just gave his recipe.” Then she said “gave his menu”. I suggested that the word might be “order” and she said yes, that’s it. On the same trip we went to a nursery to pick out plants. She walked over to the creeping phlox and said, “Look how beautiful these are, I have these growing between the stones in my walkway.” They were beautiful but the problem is that she has Johnny jump ups growing between the stones and has had them for decades. She doesn’t have any creeping phlox at all and they are not even similar except for being used as ground cover.
My Dad bought her a cell phone for Christmas and I helped get it set up and put in all of her contact numbers so that she could choose by name who she wanted to call plus showed her how to make a call and how to access the internet. She tried it maybe twice and put it back in the box and just won’t use it. Again, I don’t know whether she had trouble using it or just refuses to use it. She won’t say. It was purchased so that when out she would have a way to contact people, especially in an emergency.
Am I worrying for no reason? She has not been diagnosed with any memory care issues but when at the appointment to have a check up for just that, she told the doctor that she only got confused about one appointment but in reality it was three. The doctor said that mixing up one appointment is not an issue. So the doctor doesn’t even know about the rest of it. My Dad is mad at me for being concerned. He just says that she’s forgetful. I just don’t know.
She also stopped taking her heart medication for six months because she said that the cardiologist told her to stop. I questioned her about it and she was adamant that he said her procedure was enough, she didn’t need the medication anymore. When I took her back for a recheck at six months, he was astounded that she had stopped it as he had never told her to. She’s back on it but I check all of the time because her behavior is sometimes so strange.
I know that memory issues can also be caused by stress, (my Dad is 100% disabled and she does pretty much all of the household things plus takes care of him with some assistance from us), and and that some of her refusals to do certain things like order checks or try to use her cell phone could be caused by other things such as depression. She also barks at me when I ask her about things, like why do I always have to bring these things up.
So, yes, I am serious as I seem to be the only one concerned.
Write down all of the stuff you've told us and send it to the doctor. Try to accompany mom to her next appointment so you can give correct information.