How’s this for irony

Oma forgot to go to the memory clinic for her appointment a few weeks ago. Their response “Don’t worry; it happens all the time!” I guess it’s quite common for forgetful people who are being sent to the memory clinic to forget their appointment. Well, she was rebooked and no surprise, she failed her memory test. The strange part is, when she came home from the appointment, she told us all that she passed. Then, she went to see her doctor a little while later for follow-up, and turns out she failed and the doctor is referring her to a gerontologist. She is quite upset because she doesn’t think there is anything wrong with her memory. I guess she’s stubborn and doesn’t want to admit there is anything wrong.

And today, she went for her drivers license test (since she turned 80 in April), and she didn’t write down the time, so she showed up at 8:30am and they weren’t open yet. So, she went back at 9:30am (after my mom told her to call instead of just showing up), and turns out her appointment was yesterday. Sheesh! So, they will re-book her, so hopefully she actually remembers to go! We are all hoping she fails since she should definitely NOT be driving anymore! I know it will be hard for her if she’s not able to drive anymore, but the bank is only a few blocks away and there are lots of drivers in the family to take her on errands.

I feel badly for my mom who works from home 95% of the time (doing marking, prep, and work on her PhD) and only goes to the university a few hours a week to teach. Well, since Oma is lonely and forgetful, she goes over to mom’s house (I should mention that their houses are attached for those who may not know), and interrupts her to ask her the same questions over and over. My mom counted the interruptions a couple of days ago, and mom started working in her office at 6:30am and by 11am, Oma had interrupted her over 20 times! So my mom can’t get anything done! And Oma is just lonely and sits at home wanting to talk to someone.

On Friday, I was waiting for my mom to get home, and it was only Oma home, so I thought I would go and visit her. So, I spent a good 15 minutes with her until my mom got home. When my mom got there, I went over to my parents house and started chatting with my mom and about 5 minutes later, Oma comes over and asks me if I have time to go to her place for a visit. I said “I was just over there 5 minutes ago visiting you”. She had absolutely no memory of it!

The whole situation is very sad and difficult to deal with. She has deteriorated A LOT in the last 2 years or so, and it seems to be getting worse exponentially.