Arthritis

Dad sits on my bed and tells me about how his hand hurts. Three fingers.

Yes, you have arthritis in that hand. Do you know what arthritis is?

It’s the calcification of my joints. That’s what he said. As clear and logical as his past mind would have said it. For a moment, his eyes are full.

That’s when I question the diagnosis. How can he know the definition of arthritis and have Alzheimer’s?  He’s been mis-diagnosed. I’ve sentenced my dad to a slow death by Alzheimer’s, when it’s something else. I can still fix this.

And then he will look at me and tell me about this fog he was living in and thank me for not giving up on him and his voice would be strong, and his words would make sense and his eyes would be full again. The hope is like a wave and a hot stress of immediacy. I have to find someone to fix him.

I don’t.

I tried.
I made an appointment with a natural path. I hoped it was his thyroid. I hoped it was something this doctor would recognize and know what it was and know how to fix it.

He didn’t.

I didn’t.
And I sentenced my dad to a slow death by Alzheimer’s.
Again.

And later, in an Alzheimer’s support group, I hear a stooped old man talk of his wife and how he heard that thyroid problems can mimic Alzheimer’s and I know the hope he has welling. I am torn. I want to tell him not to go down that road because he will only succumb to more sadness. I want him to be right, and the old stooped man gets his wife back and we hear about it. He comes in one Saturday and sings in delight that she is saved by thyroid treatments and I will run back to a doctor and have dad put on the same medication and then we will all dance. And lastly, and most shamefully, I ask, why does she get to have thyroid problems and not dad.