This is the view I went to sleep and woke up to this morning and will again tomorrow, a far different view that I posted, was it only yesterday morning? And was it only yesterday that I mentioned a niggling suspicion that something was more “off” than usual with Ralph? It seems like ages ago.

After I posted those concerns yesterday, I went to wake Ralph up for the second or third time in the morning and this time I made him get out of bed. He’d slept for about sixteen hours and although he was not as spacey as the night before (including symptoms I realize now that I downplayed in my post) he still didn’t seem quite right to me.  I couldn’t exactly say why, but intuition kicked in and I called the Brain Center at Emory. They took my symptom description extremely seriously and told me to head to an urgent care. Urgent Care listened to the symptoms and immediately sent me to my local hospital emergency room. It freaked me out a little that Emory was so concerned.

Even as we drove and I repeatedly retold Ralph where we were going and the reason, I wasn’t sure if I was over-reacting. Was there something actually wrong or was Ralph just exhibiting his new level of cognitive impairment (that scary word dementia swirling in my head)? And which would be worse—that he’d had a small stroke (or that a large one was about to come) or that his Alzheimer’s had progressed?

Actually, at this point in real time (real time interrupted every two minutes as I jump up to turn off his malfunctioning hydration buzzer) I don’t know which is true. The hospital admitted him because the tests run yesterday showed his white blood cell count seriously elevated, but the doctors are puzzled because the tests so far show no sign of the infections that usually accompany this kind of count. The count itself  has come down somewhat today, perhaps because Ralph has been getting intravenous hydration, but the numbers are  nowhere near normal and the hospital is keeping him at least another night while waiting for some more testing results.

Meanwhile, again perhaps thanks to hydration, he seems lucid when he is awake. But, except when a couple of close friends visited, he has mostly been asleep. I’m not sure if he is exhausted by this experience, if he is ill, or if this is about how much he’d like to sleep most of the time at home if I let him. Similarly, is illness or being in the hospital or some combination of both the reason he has no appetite and is generally shaky weak and without a modicum of energy? More worrisome because so out of character, Ralph has not asked about his dogs; nor, amazingly, has he voiced any interest in smoking.

The doctors have said that cognitively compromised individuals are more prone to becoming disoriented as a result of what would seem minor illnesses or health issues, including anxiety, for others. Given that we are moving in three weeks, (and don’t let me get started on the practicalities that threaten to go awry now) Ralph is certainly under stress. But has the stress caused him a temporary physical and mental set back or has his new normal dropped a notch or more. The doctors tell me I did the right thing in bringing him in, and given his blood count I guess they are right, but I wonder if he is now on a slope that is only slippery but also more steeply downhill than I am ready to handle.

And there goes that damn buzzer again!