Tag Archives: New Orleans Alzheimer’s

Ralph and Alice Move Just In Time to Stay In Place–Comic Relief in the Time of Corona

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Moving to a new city in the middle of a pandemic with a physically frail, cognitively impaired husband may not have been the wisest decision I ever made, but it was the only one available.

We’ve been here almost a week and every day has been crammed with incidents that make for fear, anxiety, but also a surprising amount of laughter. Problems that would be minor in normal times loom larger when they can’t be fixed in the foreseeable future; problems that would freak me out in normal times seem humorously trivial now. What follows are just a few of the highs and lows of Alice and Ralph’s misadventures because I’ve already forgotten the rest; there have been so many.

THURSDAY  We arrived much later in the afternoon than I’d hoped but with Ralph and the dogs in better spirits than I’d expected. Workmen were still here finishing the dog’s fence and putting locks on doors before heading into c-virus hibernation. The bedroom, bath and kitchen were ready though, and Ralph lay down oblivious while I met for two hours with our contractor. He wore what looked like a futuristic gas mask as he led me through the rest of the house pointing out all the work that would have to wait until who knows when. Around 8pm I woke Ralph to share a microwaved frozen pizza –fortunately my daughter had stocked our kitchen with food to make sure I was not tempted to shop.

Close to the front lines herself as a nurse practitioner, she’s very protective of her father and me. Ahead of the government, she has mandated absolute isolation: o grocery shopping or even taking the dogs on walks. And because she works at a health clinic, she and everyone in her family, including babyRalph, are off limits. I go to bed wondering if coming to New Orleans was a huge mistake.

FRIDAY   I’m up with sun telling myself optimistically that it’s a new day. I can’t wait to try out our new white and shiny shower (with a doorway big enough for a wheelchair if that time comes). I turn on the spigot. It falls into my hand. I call my contractor who forgot to tell me he’d ordered a new spigot that would be put on later today. No shower obviously so I get dressed.  Oops, I seem to have left the bag with my underwear and socks in Georgia. I am laughing as I text about my “crises” to friends.

Ralph doesn’t mind skipping a shower; he is remarkably happy lying in bed with the dogs nearby.  But to avoid contact with the plumber in the afternoon, I drag Ralph to sit in the kitchen where he watches through his window as two guys finish a few exterior tasks before leaving for the duration.

“Why are they wearing masks?”

“The virus.”

“Right, The SARS thing?” SARS it will remain in this house.

My daughter checks in from work at the clinic where her boss has just described their work as ‘staring at a freight train heading full speed straight at you.’

A bit rattled, I put a pot on the stove to start dinner listening to a news report that mentions the governor’s new regulations about social contact. Click click but no gas. I light matches. No gas and no gas smell. I take a breath and text our contractor although I know he’s had nothing to do with the stove, which came with the house. I quickly teach myself my first lesson in how to use the intimidating microwave that also came with the house.

SATURDAY   We’re schedule to get WIFI/TV this morning but given the governor’s order limiting work to essential services, I am not sure the installer will show, or if I want him to. He shows. I follow him around at a distance with a bottle of disinfectant. It’s exciting to have TV and WIFI. I fire up my Mac no problem, but when I try to turn on my business computer, it doesn’t recognize my password.  I start to panic. All our finances are locked in the computer. I take a breath; the tech guys who helped me set the password days before we moved (who needed a password on a farm?) aren’t available until Monday. I face the reality that there’s nothing I can do and that if necessaary I’ll bookkeep by hand the way I used to as long as necessary. The good new remains Ralph.  He’s forgotten all about his back pain, also that he was sick last week. He willingly sits outside with me to drink our morning coffee. He doesn’t miss the farm one iota.

The washing machine is the next thing I can’t get to work. I text the contractor, thinking to myself I can hand wash from now on if I have to.  The contractor face times with me. First he figures out why the stove is not coming on and that there no way for me to get it fixed for now. Oh well, I have an oven, a microwave, and a George Forman grill, plus an electric teakettle; I’ll get by. As for the washing machine, once we check the breakers, my contractor has me snake my arm with the phone around the machine so he can see behind. It’s unplugged! Twenty minutes later I find my bag of underwear. I am ECSTATIC.

SUNDAY (or maybe it was still Saturday, my days are beginning to run together) My daughter calls. Her boss at the clinic has tested positive. Telemedicine is going into place. Did I mention my daughter is pregnant?  I am sick with ANXIETY.

I do not tell Ralph.

He is oblivious. Physically he’s back to what he was before his hospitalization, but mentally he’s made a shift. It’s subtle, a matter of passivity more than memory. If I don’t give him a plate or a cup he doesn’t eat or drink. If I don’t order him into the shower (now working and lovely), he stays unwashed.

MONDAY  I am about to call the tech guys about my computer but give it one last shot punching in every combination I can come up with. It turns on. Maybe anxiety had me typing in wrong letters the other or maybe I have a sticky key. I don’t know but I’m not turning that machine off any time soon. I have a relatively pleasant day avoiding the world outside. I do editing, I work on a writing assignment. I unpack more boxes. I’m more relaxed than I have been in a month, but being in this new environment and out of our old routine forces me to see more clearly how much my relationship with Ralph has deteriorated as a partnership. The silence.

TUESDAY  After looking out my window and realizing that I am looking into my neighbor’s bathroom at an inopportune moment, I figure out how to hang some impromptu curtains. I am proud of myself, becoming someone who solves physical problems. I also solve a problem concerning Ralph’s prescription drug insurance. All before 10 am. But I’ve been so busy I haven’t checked on Ralph, assuming he’d call me on his cell if he needed me. I go to the bedroom where he is fine, but his phone is dead. No charge even plugged into a working outlet. I call Verizon, am put on hold, then on call back status during which time I take a quick shower. Finally a technician comes on. It takes us five minutes to fix the problem. I think to myself that I’m glad I’ve sent up a landline for Ralph to use in an emergency. Of course now I need to order an actual landline phone.

WEDNESDAY Here we are. Ralph in his realm downstairs, me up here doing work and texting friends. I’ve been entertaining my friends with daily blow-by-blow accounts of our foibles. The humor may be only skin deep—it feels flimsy in retelling here—but it is what works to pull us through.  And oddly, Ralph is almost an inspiration. He’s so damn relaxed!  I am trying to stay relaxed too, by worrying about only those issues I can actually problem solve, like cooking rice in the microwave. Or the fact that Ralph’s phone just died again.

HOUSE HUNTING WITH RALPH (WITH A LITTLE GUITAR STRUMMING ON THE SIDE)

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Ralph and I just spent an intense week in New Orleans: We spent working hours babysitting BabyRalph during the hiatus between summer day camp/day care ending and preschool beginning, and we were also house hunting. I use the word we,but obviously I was doing the childcare and the house hunting.  Having Ralph along with me was a challenge on both counts.

1. Babysitting:

Usually, when I go off on babysitting or business travel, Ralph stays  home since he hates leaving his dogs and settled routine. I prepare an extended life list, call him constantly and arrange for “visitors” who  make sure he is eating and following his list.  But I took him along last week because: one, he’d had a precancerous growth surgically removed from his wrist the week before so I needed to clean and bandage his hand daily; and two, I wanted him to have a sense of involvement in the decision-making process of moving from the farm to  New Orleans. Not just a sense–his involvement mattered in practical terms as I realized the longer we were there. Needless to say, Ralph was challenged in New Orleans in ways he is not challenged by his daily routine at home.

We slept at an Airbnb a block from my daughter’s home, but Ralph spent most of his days either “reading” (i.e. napping) on my daughter’s couch and smoking on her back porch. Not unlike home, except he was “reading” on a couch in the living room, not tucked away in his bedroom, so BabyRalph and I were always aware of him and affected by both his presence or absence. BabyRalph would ask where “Bop” was going all the time and would try to follow him to the porch–where he could no longer play since it was given over to cigarette fumes–or try to rouse Bop from his couch stupor so they could play guitar together.

In fact, the two had some lovely moments making music together; a useful reminder to both Ralph and me that Ralph still can and should play his guitar on a regular basis, an activity to add to his daily list. But while Ralph is gentle and wants to be helpful, his cognitive limits and needs were more apparent than ever. I was caught between a curious, active 2 year old whom I need to keep an eye on at all times and an oblivious, inactive 72 year old whom I needed to keep an eye on at all times.  It is not that Ralph is irresponsible all the time, but I can’t rely on his judgment from moment to moment. I could not leave the two alone together for even a few minutes any more than I could leave BabyRalph alone with another two year old.

2. House Hunting:

When I was off BabyRalph duty, I took Big Ralph to open houses. It is important to note that he has completely accepted that we are moving.

“I don’t do any of the things on the farm I used to like to do anyway,” he says with a certain calm acceptance that both gladdens and saddens me.

“The house we move to in New Orleans will be the house where I die,” he says with less calm and even more poignancy.

But acceptance is not enthusiasm. If Ralph’s capacity for enthusiasm is extremely limited these days under the best of circumstances, leaving the home where he’s lived for over 20 years, really the only home he remembers well, is far from the best of circumstances. And looking at property for sale—once his favorite activity in the world and what he did for a living as a small time developer/renovator/manager—has become a tedious chore for him (no smoking for one thing).

I thought of not making him come along but besides wanting  him invested in the house-buying,  I wanted to get a sense of what, if anything, might spark some, well eagerness seems to strong a word but at least a smile.

I personally was looking for something that needed no renovation, was relatively close to BabyRalph, and offered walkability. I was thinking small, but, of course with a porch for Ralph and some kind of yard for the dogs. Oh, and an office space I could escape to. I was thinking cute bungalow. But not one house I picked based on my criteria brought anything like a smile to his face.

Then on a whim I dragged him along  to a house that was totally outside my comfort zone: both bigger, a two-story, and older than I wanted. We went to see it for fun because my agent had seen it already and said it was “Amazing,” and because my daughter wanted a peek inside.

It was pretty amazing but what was most amazing was that Ralph actually liked the house. He loved the yard and the garage and the workshop. I liked the loveliness of the architecture and the fact that though old, it seemed in better condition than any other house I had seen in the price range. Ralph said he could imagine living there. I wasn’t sure I could. It was so not what I’d been looking for.

The next day Ralph didn’t remember the house at all. So we drove by it again, twice, he liked it again both times. I did too, but I still wasn’t sure.

Ditto the next day.

And the next. Meanwhile I kept checking out other houses by myself,  but none compared. The yards were tiny. The layout, even in smaller houses, would have been too confusing for him. The prices as high or higher.

So we now have a signed contract on a house. If all goes according to plan, we will move next spring. I am more excited each day, planning small changes, plotting what furniture to take. This will be the nicest house Ralph and I have lived in.

As for Ralph, I still wouldn’t say he is enthusiastic but as he repeats daily, “It’s the one with the yard and the workshop, right? That should work fine.”