Oh guys. I haven’t forgotten you.
It’s been a bananas summer. Let’s talk about Willie.
Willie forgets stuff. I mean, all the time.
She couldn’t figure out how to renew her driver’s license. She forgot that Indy, on occasion, freezes. She forgot that Indy’s freezing bought him a stroke workup. She forgot to order the rose gold folders she offered to buy me.
Twice.
What she doesn’t forget is that the lady who runs the cafe at the Temple of Doom is mean. And that the lady who left a sacred item in that café that Indy later mistakenly took is mean. And that she just doesn’t like the deposed ruler of Hallway C, Second Floor because she’s bossy.
So’s the current leader of Hallway C, Second Floor. If you catch my drift.
But those things Willie does forget are concerning. So In April, I had Willie’s doctor perform a test to screen for dementia.
Willie aced it.
I mean, not a single thing wrong. Willie, who forgot that she had me take Indy to the emergency room for an irregular heartbeat. Willie, who couldn’t figure out Indy’s home heart monitor despite the three decades she worked as a cardiac nurse. Willie, who looked at a picture of herself at age 56 and explained to me it was a picture of herself when she worked at the bank.
She worked at the bank when JFK was in office.
Yeah. That Willie. Passed the dementia screening test like she was Nick Foles executing the Philly Special.
Literally the only thing I know about football.
I was stymied. Was she gaslighting me with all these things she supposedly forgot? Did she just not give a flying fig? Was I going crazy?
Don assured me that while yes, Willie has a general disinterest in Indy’s Parkinson’s disease until and unless an interest suits her, she was a good deal more forgetful than she’d been a decade ago.
He also reminded me of the hit her brain took six years ago – six! – when she went septic. She spent two hours with no readable blood pressure. The only reason she wasn’t declared dead was because she still had a heartbeat.
Which reminded me of another truth: Willie never does anything the easy way.
Now, I’d had many conversations with my aunt and uncle over the years about Willie’s memory being like a Wiffle ball – rough and full of holes. I stopped questioning my sanity and started texting my siblings.
“We need to talk about Mom,” I texted. “Can I buy you dinner?”
Their responses reassured me even more of my sanity.
“Overdue,” said one.
“Can you meet tomorrow?” asked the other.
So in short order, we sat huddled around a table at the Pop Inn in Chalfont.
A little aside here – if you are a sci-fi nerd, your people are waiting for you at the Pop Inn.
Also, the fries are really good.
Anyway, we ordered drinks – I skipped the Super Soldier Serum in favor of a beer – and a boatload of fries. As we swapped stories, I realized I indeed needed a bigger boat.
Of fries.
Sorry.
My brother explained how, after taking Willie home one evening, she told him the next day all about her lovely Uber driver from the night before.
My sister told me that, despite three conversations confirming plans for her and her kids to swim in the Temple of Doom pool with Willie, Willie still got the date wrong.
That one I knew about. Willie had invited me after “confirming” with my sister. My kids and I were all decked out in bathing suits with the proverbial nowhere to go.
We swapped stories for a long time.
“Respectfully,” my brother said, “I think that screening test was useless.”
We all agreed.
So we decided that Willie needed further testing. But who would tell Willie?
Now, my siblings and I are like most siblings – there’s not a lot we agree on. But we do agree on two things: we love the Preston & Steve Show, and my brother is my mom’s favorite child.
“I’ll tell her,” my brother said. “She’ll take it better from me. She’ll listen to me. You’ll” – referring to me – “just get in trouble.”
That’s the truth. For sure.
I wished him luck and told him to call me when he was done. I would follow up with Willie, then with her doctor.
When the deed was done, my brother called me. That he was still alive was a good sign. I asked if he needed to stop by for a drink after the tongue lashing he had surely received. After all, when I told Willie Indy’s symptoms were clearly Parkinson’s, she told me I was looking for neurological diseases because of my background then canceled his MRI because it interfered with their Phillies tickets.
When I told her to move because the house was too much for her and Indy, she told me the only way I was taking her out was feet first.
When I told her I wasn’t taking her to get her ears pierced because she’d given a scammer $2000 and access to her bank account – something we needed to remedy immediately – she told me I was mean.
So I fully expected my brother to be licking a few wounds.
“She took it well,” my brother said. “She agreed that her memory wasn’t what it used to be. She said a workup was probably a good idea.”
You’ve got to be kidding me.
She’d given my brother dinner and sent him on his way with promises to call her doctor to get further testing ordered.
Encouraged, I brought up the conversation after Indy’s telehealth appointment the next day. I would go with her to see her doctor. I’d relay to him what my brother and Willie had discussed.
Remember in The Bodyguard, when Kevin Costner and Whitney’s security guy get in a fight in Whitney’s kitchen? Remember how Kevin Costner just mops the floor with that guy?
I was that guy.
Never pictured Willie as Kevin Costner but damn can that girl kick some metaphorical ass.
Willie got so angry with me that Indy got mad at me, and Indy hasn’t been mad at me since I brought home the dude with all the tattoos and piercings.
She demanded to know what things she’d forgotten because, well, she’d forgotten them. I was wrong. I was a poor clinician. I was controlling.
Well, that last one I agree with. But until the world reliably functions exactly the way I want it to, I’ll need to control a few things.
On and on Willie went, explaining away all the reasons she needed further testing.
“And you know what else?” Willie demanded.
“What?” I asked. I am, not for nothing, Willie’s kid. I may have been panting on the floor while Kevin Costner sat on a chair compressing my trachea, but I wasn’t intimidated. I could withstand this assault all day. But it was getting boring, and I really wanted my Starbucks.
Plus, I had been bingeing the podcast Dirty John. The next installment was waiting for me if I could just get to my 4Runner.
“I forget what I was going to say,” Willie huffed.
“Imagine that,” I sighed.
Indy laughed.
“Can I go?” I asked.
“The sooner the better,” Willie told me.
“Can I use your credit card to buy my Starbucks?” I asked.
“Do I owe you money?” Willie demanded.
She did, in fact, owe me money.
“Go ahead,” Willie sighed.
Later, Willie texted me with the thing she forgot.
She wanted to know A) if she had an iPhone B) Can she put reminders on it and C) If she does have an iPhone, why?
Incidentally, the query about putting reminders on the iPhone came from – wait for it – Willie’s memory therapist.
Willie does, in fact, have an iPhone. We’ve discussed this multiple times. I bought it to connect to the Apple Watches I bought for her and Indy. The Apple Watches I bought, in part, to remind Willie and Indy of doctors’ appointments and medication times.
In other words, they’re already programmed with reminders.
But Willie forgot, so she couldn’t tell her memory therapist that.
And why doesn’t Willie’s memory therapist know that she can program Willie’s Alexa, Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy phone with reminders?
I scheduled Willie for her first round of testing. It’s a CT scan of the head.
Willie demanded that I go with her. She’s claustrophobic, she said. She needs me there to keep her calm.
Because I so clearly keep her calm.
“You know that the CT scanner is open on both ends, right? It’s like a donut.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Willie said. “I’m claustrophobic.”
Ah. In other words, Willie still hasn’t forgiven me. Forcing me to attend the CT scan is my punishment.
Probably should have had my brother schedule it.