Mom and Dad: Plan of Confusion

The National Destroyer Escort Sailor’s Association reunion is being held in Washington DC this year and Mom would not be deterred from going.  She’s been talking about it for over a year.  There will be tours to the various war memorials and she feels very strongly that she and Dad need to see them.  She understands that Dad will not know what is going on, won’t recognize any of the symbolism or any of the people, but it is very important to her to go.  And so I agreed to take them…  (I know, I must be insane!)  The DESA newsletter printed the registration forms, instructions, and  information about activities, along with disclaimers about cancellations, late booking fees, and reservations being limited.

Mom started to study these pages.   Going over them with a fine toothed comb, retaining little of what she read, she would become frustrated by all the confusing directions and tiny print.  She started making notes of things she found alarming, confusing, or important.  She worried herself frantic.

She worried that we were waiting too long to send in the forms.  I frequently explained that we would get the forms filled out and mailed in when it was time to do so.  There was no need to mail them in too early.  Mom argued that if there were mistakes made there needed to be time to correct them or they would miss deadlines, forfeit their deposits, and have to find hotel accommodations elsewhere – it said so right in the DESA newsletter.

When the time came to send in the registration form, Mom worried that there wouldn’t be enough money to afford the trip.  I assured her that there was enough money.  Dan assured her that there was enough money.  We got busy filling out the forms and totaling up the amounts for various activities and such.  There were 2 separate forms:  one was to register for the event and banquet, the other was for the activities.  The event/banquet form also included information about the hotel.  Money for registration and banquet was to be sent to DESA.  Room reservations were up to each member to make on their own and the bill for the room was to be paid directly to the hotel.  Other activites were to be reserved through the reunion planning committee by filling out the activites form.  Money for activites was to be sent to the planning committee.  The instructions were clear, but Mom worried about mistakes.  The instructions clearly stated that money for activites was not to be sent to DESA.

We filled out the forms, totaled the columns, and I delivered the forms to my brother so he could write the checks and mail in the forms.  We spent hours going over the forms.  I explained every detail, read the instructions, explained the instructions, and showed Mom how we had followed the instructions to the letter.

Mom got distracted for about half an hour because she wanted to find a card Dad had been carrying in his billfold – until he got them wet, somehow, she can’t remember how.  Dad had been busy telling his “Kick his ass” story to the man in the mirror, holding his hat up and pointing to locations on the embroidered ship.  Dad saw Mom with his old billfold out and came to collect it.  Mom tried to keep his hands out of the stack of cards while Dad tried to reconcile having a billfold in his pocket while clearly there was a billfold on the table.

Back to the forms, we filled in the final details about Dad’s ship: number, name, and Dad’s rank.  I went over them again with Mom to make sure she was satisfied, then started to tear the pages from the newsletter.  Mom yelled in panic, “No!  I need those pages in there so I can make sure we didn’t make any mistakes!”  Um, Mom, we need to take these pages out so we can mail them in.  Would you like for me to make copies of them?

I went to the office and asked a staff member to copy both sides of both pages.  If Mom was missing the back to one of the pages, she would be all the more convinced that we had made some terrible error and would get to Washington DC with no place to stay and no way to attend activities and we would also be out all that money.  I took the copies and placed them back in the newsletter in order.  All was well and the originals were delivered to Dan for his role…

Mom called later that evening:  Did Dan know that he had to send 2 separate checks?  Did he realize there were 2 different places to mail the forms?  Was he aware that if mistakes were made they would lose all that money?  I assured her that Dan understood that there were 2 separate checks – one to DESA, one to Reunion Planners.  I assured her that I had pointed out the addresses and which form to mail with which check.  I also pointed out that each form was actually a page (of which she had copies) that included a full list of instructions that Dan could read over if he had questions.  This was less than reassuring to Mom because she was so stressed out over the confusing directions and the fear of making a costly mistake.  I tried to assure her that we were taking care of everything with plenty of time to correct any mistakes, but there was no way to relieve her of her anxiety over some of her perceptions of some of the wording of some of the instructions…  It was as if she were seeing this as a contest where every instruction must be followed to the letter or the entry would be ignored.

The next day, Mom called and was very distraught.  “Where is page six?” she demanded.

Page 6?  What do you mean, Mom?

“I have every other page but page 6!  What did you do with it?”

I had copies made of each page we needed to send in with the checks, Mom.  There should be 4 copied pages.  Each of the forms we filled out and whatever was on the back of those forms.

“Yes.  But there is no page 6!”

Um…  let’s see.  Are there 2 copies of one page?

“No!  And I am missing page 6!  I need page 6!”

We discussed these pages at great length.  I could not help her understand that each page from the newsletter had 2 sides and that the 4 copies she had were those pages.  She got angrier and more frustrated – either I was trying to pull a fast one, or there had been some terrible mistake made and all was lost!  A personal visit was in order…

Mom had taken the 4 copies and stapled them together in the order she thought was correct.  Only one of those 4 pages did not have a page number on it, so she had selected it as the last page of the 4.  This left a gap between pages 5 and 7, which she correctly reasoned was where page 6 belonged.  I did not dare remove the staple and re-order the pages.  Writing “Page 6″ wasn’t actually official enough – it wasn’t typed there like all the other page numbers so I could just be making it up!  I acted as if I were puzzling it out.  Hmm, let’s see.  We have these 4 copies of the pages we had to send in.  Let’s see if we can put them back in in order.  The front of the newsletter is page 1, the back of that is page 2 (turn the page).  The next page is 3, and the back of that is page 4 (turn the page).  The next page is page 5 – here is the copy of that page.  The back of page 5 should be page 6, correct?  “Yes.  And that’s the page that is missing!”  When the anxiety lessened again, I continued.  This next copied page is page 7, and here is page 8.  The next page is the original page 9 and on the back of that is page 10.  It doesn’t seem as if we are missing any pages.  The only thing I see is the page number was not typed onto page 6.  “Yes!  Page 6 is missing!  I need that page!”  I think these pages stapled together are in the wrong order.  I think this is the back of page 5, making it page 6.  There doesn’t seem to be anywhere else this page fits into the newsletter.  I wrote ‘page 6′ on this page.  Would you like for me to put them in order and restaple them?  “That won’t help!  I am still missing page 6!”

This went on for days.  Between phone calls and visits, page 6 remained ‘missing’ and doom and despair were sure to result!

Five or six days after this all began, my brother called me.  Mom had been calling him 2 to 3 times a day worried about him making a mistake with the checks, mailing addresses, and/or separate forms.  It was driving him crazy.  I couldn’t help but laugh and ask if she had expressed her concerns over the missing page 6?  She had, and he wanted it explained because he didn’t understand what she was talking about.  I explained as best I could and told him how I had handled it so far.

Mom got a call from DESA the very next day.  They had received everything and all was well.  They wondered about the mailing address, though.  They’d been sending everything to Dan’s address but the forms had their address listed at the assisted living facility.  They updated their records and this was what ultimately refocused Mom’s mind.  Now she was pleased that they had made a “special effort” to contact her and update their information.  She was now comfortable that Dan had followed the instructions and that each check went where it was supposed to go.

“Did I tell you I got a call from DESA?  They made a special effort to contact me and verify our information.”

I’m glad to hear that, Mom.  I’m looking forward to the trip.

“What do we have between now and our trip?  Will we see you before then?”

Many times, Mom.  Many times.  And I look forward to each of them.

Tags: Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's care, caregiver, caring for elderly parents, elder care, senior care