A Smile a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

“I am Thomas. I just want to let you know if you need help with anything, just ask. I’ll be glad to help. I have been here 25 years and on your first day, I am sure you have little butterflies in your stomach. Don’t be afraid to ask,” I said with a smile to the new young lady employee.

I noticed a little nervous tick around her full lips when she entered the office and her hand shook. I wanted to ease her introverted fear as much as I could. Mr. Tooke, our boss, stood to announce Darla Crew as our new secretary/receptionist and went around the room introducing each of us to her.She nodded politely and smiled at each one of us but did not make eye contact. After our daily review of our sales, we all dispersed to our individual offices. I waited behind and offered to show Ms. Crew around the building as nobody took the initiative. She placed her hand on my arm and we took a walk.

I could feel a weakness in her character and I hoped she could overcome it. And overcome it, she did. Within that first year, she moved up to office manager and did not hold back on being a strong leader. Within that same year, I learned that she and I were both going through a divorce. We leaned on each other as we wound our way through it.

That was 30 years ago. We got married the second year she had started at our dealership business. And she retired 25 years later and I retired 5 years after her. We were now in our 70s and lived on our 5 acre track of land in the country. Days were slow but full of happiness and love we both did not think we would ever find again. Our blended family lived close by, and we were thrilled to help with the raising of our growing family that now included 5 grandchildren. We watched each other turn gray, walk a little slower, laugh at our forgetfulness, complain about aches and pains and accompanied each other to doctor’s appointments. She stayed busy with gardening, reading, shopping and moving furniture from one wall to the other. Our morning routine found us on the porch with our cups of coffee watching the wildlife and discussing her plants. Other than that, I stayed as busy as I wanted with my hobby of woodworking.

“Here’s your coffee, my dear,” I said as I joined her on the front porch.

“Well, thank you young man,” she said with a smile and took the cup. “Your mother would be proud of you.”

I found her response to be a little out of character but thought she was joking. “Yeah, I think she would be proud of me.”

“Where is your mother?” she asked.

“Honey, you know she has been gone for many years.”

“Oh, I know. I just asked to see what you would say.”

“Look, there are some new deer at the feed trough,” she pointed across the field where the deer had gathered.

Following breakfast, I mentioned to my wife that we needed to go grocery shopping. When we returned home and put the groceries away, she went into the living room and began moving the sofa from one side of the room to the other. I went over to help and she screamed, “I don’t need your stupid help!”

I stood erect and looked in her eyes. They were darting from side to side as if she was looking for something. Standing slumped over and her hand on her hip, she went to the coffee table and moved it in front of the couch. She then slowly moved everything else around, stood back and looked at her work as a painter would do looking at his painting.

When she was satisfied, she smiled at me and said, “Now, doesn’t that look a lot better?”

I nodded and told her the room was now perfect. She gave me that smile I was so used to seeing all these years we had spent together.

We slept in different bedrooms and had been for many years. She found my snoring disturbed her and she could not get a full night’s sleep. I just wanted to make her happy. But we would always share a peck on the lips before we went to our separate rooms. I loved her so much that I looked forward to lying next to her. I never told her how I felt about the sleeping arrangement. I would stand outside her bedroom until I knew she had gone to sleep then I would go to my room.

I was awakened by her screaming out for me. The clock showed 4 a.m. I jumped up and ran to where I heard her scream. She was standing just outside the living room. She saw me coming down the hall and she reached out by grabbing my arm.

“Don’t go in there, Thomas. Someone is in there,” she whispered. “They have moved all the furniture. I went in there to get my book I had been reading and I fell over the coffee table. It wasn’t where it was supposed to be. There was enough light in the room and I could see all the furniture has been moved,” she continued.

I took her by the hand and said, “Honey, it’s o.k. Let me get you back into your bed and I will call the police. They will come and check the house out. Come on.”

After tucking her into bed, I went into the living room and placed my head in my hands. I was not understanding what was going on with my wife, but something was wrong.

The next day Darla was her old self. She fixed breakfast as always, cleaned the house, went for a walk in the neighborhood and piddled around the house as usual. I kept a close eye on her wondering if I should make a doctor’s appointment or not.

When she laid down for a nap, I called my daughter and laughingly told her what I had noticed about her stepmother. I made it sound like Darla was forgetful and that we found it humorous. Nicole told me to write everything down, date it and the length of the episodes. I told her everything was fine. I told her that her stepmother’s forgetfulness isn’t every day, but just every now and then. Her last words to me were, “Dad, write it down.” I wanted to call my stepson and daughter and let them know what their mother was doing. But I wasn’t ready to say it out loud to them.

Two weeks later, Darla drove herself to get her hair done. She was gone for hours. When she finally drove up, I noticed the windshield wipers were on. It was a beautiful sun shinny day. There was no need for wipers. I did not want her to think I was questioning her, so I waited to ask if she had driven in some rain. I could see she was having trouble getting out of the car. She was thrashing about pressing buttons, honking the horn, beating on the window. I rushed to the door to open it and it was locked. Her eyes were wide open and she was pulling at her hair. I yelled through the window for her to unlock the door. I pointed at the lock and she continued pressing on every button she could find and finally managed to unlock the door.

“Turn the damn car off! I can’t seem to find the key to turn off the engine!” she yelled.

I helped her out of the car, reached in and turned the wipers off and pressed the button for the engine. I did not ask her if she drove in rain.

In the next few months, Darla’s memory was getting worse.Her morning pills were in a weekly pill box. I placed the pill box in front of her and gave her space to take them on her own. Afterward, I removed the pill box and put it in the bread box where she had always kept them. It seemed like the perfect place for them since we didn’t use it as a bread box. One day after feeding the birds, I saw her rush into the kitchen straight for the bread box and remove the pill box. She looked up at me and said, “I forgot to take my pills.” I reminded her she had taken them that morning. I placed the pill box on a shelf where she could not reach them.

Darla’s daughter and son, Angie and Sam, came home to help celebrate their mom’s 75th birthday. Darla ran up to them and gave them a big hug and fawned over them as a mother would do. Once inside the house, she looked at me and whispered, “Who are they, Thomas?” I shook my head in wonderment and turned to face Angie. She had heard her mother.

“Mom, it’s Angie, your daughter. Are you o.k.?”

“Oh, Angie! When did you get here?” she asked and gave her daughter another hug.

The rest of the day went without any mishaps, but not without a conversation with Angie and Sam. Darla had gone to take a nap and I presented my “notes” about Darla’s behavior to her kids.

“Where do we go from here, Thomas?” they asked.

“I plan on making a doctor’s appointment and go from there,” I stated.

Two weeks later, an MRI was scheduled. Darla was sleeping more and more. She complained about headaches and dizziness. I was anxious to have the MRI but scared at the same time. But I was missing my wife. What was the MRI going to reveal? It was going to reveal what I had not wanted to face. Dementia. I had taken the fob to her car out of her purse and forbid her to drive. That day she came home from her hair appointment, in which she never made it to the beautician, and couldn’t find her way out of the car, I knew I couldn’t trust her behind the wheel again.

With Angie by my side we waited in the doctor’s office waiting for the dreaded results. Angie helped her get dressed for the appointment or she would have gone in her night gown. She didn’t know who Angie was and insisted on calling her “Fran”, which was Darla’s sister who died at birth.

Angie placed her hand on my knee to keep me from shaking it up and down. Darla thought we were at her childhood home as she kept asking about a doll. We had to sit her down several times as she got up to look under things in search of her doll. My heart was beating out of chest. I was thinking to myself, “So what if she has dementia? What can the doctor recommend?”

He would say, “We have facilities, it is important to keep a routine at the house, label things and blah, blah, blah.” I had researched the disease enough to know how to “plan” for it.

The door slowly opened, and Dr. Jimenez entered. He wasn’t smiling as he shook my hand and acknowledged Angie. With a softened look, he looked at my wife then back to me.

“I have good news and bad news,” he started. “The good news is that she does not have dementia.”

The sigh of relief Angie and I expelled was felt.

“But,” he said, “she has a tumor on her brain.”

Blinking my eyes and before I could ask, Angie blurted out question after question. “Is it terminal, is it operable, is it causing her memory failure?”

“Hold on,” the doctor said. “I understand your desperate concern but let me answer one question at a time. It is not terminal, but is very, very serious. And yes, it could be the reason for her memory impairment.”

My mind went into mumble jumble as I listened to the doctor explain the medical verbiage. Bottom line, surgery was imperative. The fast growing golf ball tumor has to be removed and it has to be done ASAP. Thank goodness Angie was with me to help me get through that doctor’s appointment. I could barely breath and she took over from there. I was afraid I would need to make an appointment with a cardiologist for myself when this was all said and done. I didn’t know if my heart could handle much more.

After Dr. Jimenez explained what we were facing and the viewing of the MRI, he gave us a moment to think. He was very considerate and waited for us to give him our thoughts on whether or not to follow through with the surgery. Angie and I looked at each other and we both nodded our heads at the same time. It was then he gave us the name of a surgeon and emphasized an urgent appointment was needed. His staff quickly contacted Dr. Carter’s office and we had an appointment for the following morning.

After visiting with Dr. Carter and signing a ton of paper work, Darla would be undergoing surgery the next morning. We understood there was a 50-50 chance that she would have a full recovery following surgery and I had to sign papers saying I understood.

We were up at 4:00 that morning and at the hospital by 6:00 as instructed. Darla had no idea where she was or why she was there even though Angie, Sam and I told her a dozen times. Angie and Sam had a moment with their mother, kissed her and smiling down at her they said, “We will be right here when you come out, Mom.” “Where am I going, little girl?” she asked.

I was alone with the love of my life for a moment before they came to take her away. She looked at me with that smile I remembered those 30 years ago when she showed up for work that first day. I never, ever forgot that smile. Even though she was under heavy sedation by this time, she opened her eyes wide and smiled and said, “I am going to be fine, old man. Stop looking so sad. Where’s that smile you had for me years ago when you were so helpful on my first day of work? I need to see it.”

Through tears, I smiled back at her.

One year later, Darla came in from her daily walk. She had a baby bird in her hand. “Look what I found out there. I think he fell out of the nest. I found him sitting on the ground. I think he has forgotten how to fly.”

“He will learn again, honey. He will learn.”

Together we stepped outside. I held the bird up high in the air, gave it a gentle push. We watched it spread it’s wings and fly off.