my constant concern

Often I forget what day it is, so it's not unusual for me to write the wrong date or accidentally forget to go into work on time because the date in my head is wrong. I tend to consistently send messages to one friend on the wrong day, mixing up the date and being off a day, but it happens regularly in general. This is bad on birthdays. I will sometimes specifically email around midnight to cover all my bases or call a few days early so I don't forget on the day-of.

Here's the thing about all this... I never used to be like this. I was so amazing at remembering people's birthdays and anniversaries, able to remember the calendar in my head and have an internal schedule that would magically make me remember everything I needed to remember related to dates.

Always on my mind is dementia and Alzheimer's. My grandmother is fully episodic. With bouts of dementia starting when I still lived in Edmonton, the mentions to my mother of incidents left me realising I would be in trouble should my mother start experiencing the same. She was in denial for 7 or 8 years about it all, blaming my grandmother's hearing aid or the cold she was getting over. Now, though, it is Alzheimer's; fully, completely Alzheimer's. There is no denying.

Sometimes when I talk to my mother I get nervous twitters in my tummy because she'll repeat things she just said in a short conversation, will be more foul tempered about daily occurances than she probably needs to be, and tell me about things she's misplaced around the house, only to find weeks later. These were the same things that made me watch my grandmother more carefully when I saw her regularly. These are the same things that keep me awake at night, trying to figure out how long it would take for me to pack up my life and move to take care of her if I'm right, wondering how long I have before I must deal with this in actuality.

And, yet, that I can't remember birthdays and anniversaries, that I get dates confused, brings on a whole new set of worries. That I, too, may be closer to my constant concern than I can handle. Where my mother has me, I have no one. That is my constant concern.