Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Friends and Family

In the past week, Michele and I have been swarmed with calls, emails, and offers of help. Thanks so much to all of you. Michele got some flowers from Sarah and an offer of Dee-Dee-sitting from Juli. Lynda has offerred to come up from Texas to help out, and tonight Maggi is bringing us some dinner. Wow! I know I’m forgetting some folks – we appreciate and thank all of you.

Add to that all the normal, everyday help from Denise and Diane, and we feel pretty lucky. Even when things have been tough like they've been the last couple weeks.

Especially touching to me personally has been the offers of help from friends of our in Jefferson City. A lot of those friends have been following the blog, and some were notified by a prayer chain request Michele sent to our old church. Michele's had some great talks with Julie and Stephanie and probably some others.

Last night, I had a great talk with another old JC friend, Jana. Her cousin, Roxana, is some kind of geriatric specialist (Jana – what is her title again?) and had some great advice for us.

One of the pieces of advice I thought was especially intriguing. Roxana said that in cases where there is a sudden and rapid increase in dementia, it’s usually (75% of the time) related to a bladder infection. Especially among women. She said this was especially important for us to know because most primary care doctors don’t know to look for that.

It reminded me that perhaps we’d be better served by seeing a geriatric specialist instead of Dee Dee’s long-time doctor. I don’t know. If anyone has any experience with doctors specializing in geriatric medicine, please let us know!

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