[Magdalen] Marcy update

[Jay Weigel]

​The thing that set in motion the  takeover of my parents' care was a call
I received one evening as I was preparing to do some grocery shopping. It
was a very nice police officer from Knoxville, TN, who had been summoned
when my father had driven to the local Barned & Noble and then "lost" his
car and had no recollection of how he'd gotten there. They thought he'd had
a stroke or something, took him home, and found my mother very confused
also. They loaded both into an ambulance and took them to ER and called me.
I was able to clear up a few things by telling them that my dad had
dementia and I thought mom had a touch of it also. Dad checked out okay
physically but mom was found to have a UTI. ​Meanwhile I called my brother
in California who had some legal control over their affairs and he got the
car towed and things proceeded from there. IIRC the neighbor across the
street had a key to the house (he watched it for vacations etc.) and at
some point he got the keys to the car. That was the beginning.

On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 11:35 AM, Scott Knitter <scottknitter at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 11:13 PM, James Oppenheimer-Crawford
> <oppenheimerjw at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think it is a kind of denial defense
> > mechanism that is common to all of us if we get to that point.
>
> My dad, with Parkinson's, had a hard time believing he really could no
> longer drive. I found this out when I stayed with him while my mom was
> having knee surgery; somehow he found some car keys and was halfway
> down the driveway when I ran out and he stopped. I told him Mom had
> said clearly that no matter what else, Dad is not to drive. He looked
> downcast and shut off the car to let me put it back in the garage.
> Very sad moment for both of us. Keys stayed in my pocket and under my
> pillow through the rest of my stay.
>
>
> --
> Scott R. Knitter
> Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA
>