We’re Not Talking About It – Round Two

Photo by Angelo Moleele on Unsplash

This post details events that occurred earlier this year. I am taking my time processing these events before publishing. Thank you for staying with me.

Evil Super Powers

The day we got the email from M, I left for a work trip. I was scheduled to be gone for 12 days. When I travel for work, I generally travel into an unseen and undocumented vortex wherein time gets sucked out of me, and I am busy, busy, busy from morning until night. Before I left, I carefully filled two weeks’ worth of pills for Mr. J to take – both morning and night pills. “I’m leaving these pills right here,” I say, as I first lift up and then put down the two containers on the coffee table. “Okay,” Mr. J nods. I foolishly think this is enough. By way of background, Mr. J and I have opposite evil superpowers. My evil superpower is that when things leave my hands, my brain does not record this information. Thus, I am constantly losing my keys, my purse, my notes, my groceries. Et Cetera, ad nauseum.

Mr. J’s evil superpower is that he can’t see things that are literally right in front of him. “Where’s the kombucha?” he’ll ask. “It’s in the ‘fridge on the bottom shelf,” I call from the living room. “I don’t see it,” he inevitably responds. “On the right,” I say. “On the bottom shelf.” “Still can’t find it,” he reports. I get up and wander to the fridge. And lo and behold, the kombucha will be – you guessed it! On the bottom shelf on the right. “Oh,” he’ll say. “I didn’t see it there.” This is not a ‘post diagnosis’ thing. This has always been a thing. (And yet I still keep telling him where to find things, when we both know he won’t. . . but that is a topic for another day.)

“I Can’t Find It”

Because of our respective superpowers,, it should have come as no surprise to me when the Divine Ms. M (our adult daughter, not to be confused with “M” our OT) called me and reported there was only one box of pills, despite me leaving for nearly two weeks. “There’s another one,” I say. “It’s on the coffee table.” “It’s not,” she replies, “I looked.” “I know there’s another one,” I exhale, exhausted by this game. “You should have shown me where you put it,” the Divine Ms. M. “It wouldn’t have mattered,” I counter. “Because I put them together on the coffee table. If you found one of them on the coffee table, Mr. J must have moved the other one.” “I’ll look around,” the Divine Ms. M said, “but I’m not hopeful.”

I’ll Do It Later

I call Mr. J. “Babe, let’s do your meds. Just take the containers out of the basket, and I’ll tell you how many and whether they are morning or evening.” “Let’s do it later,” Mr. J says. “You sound tired,” I say. “Do you want to take a nap and then do the meds?” “Sure,” he responds. I can tell he isn’t interested. Later, I call again. “Let’s do your pills, babe.” Mr. J sighs. “I’ll do it later.” Silence from both of us. “I am perfectly capable of figuring out what meds should be taken when. I passed that test, remember?” he says, somewhat petulantly, somewhat defensively. It is true that early in our OT journey, Mr. J performed some tasks for M, our OT. One was reading prescription labels and sorting the meds into a pill box. But it involved four meds. Mr. J takes a fistful of meds for various things (not one of which is designed to address his degenerative brain disease). Somehow, I know with absolute certainty that the pill box will remain empty until I get home. Because he doesn’t want to talk about it. I suspect he may not feel up to the challenge. But I don’t ask. Because we’re not talking about it.

Coming Home

“I’m coming home early,” I announce to Mr. J on a Saturday morning phone call. “I’ll be home at 5 tomorrow night. Can you pick me up?” “Of course,” said Mr. J. “Speaking of picking up,” I continue. Mr. J groans. “Here we go.” “Could you just pick up the cigar wrappers and throw away some of the empty cans lying around? And maybe run the dishwasher?” “Has the Divine Ms. M been ratting me out?” he asks. “I know your deepest darkest secrets,” I respond. “And I’ve been away for work before. I know exactly what our living room looks like.” “Okay,” Mr. J replies. “I’ll get to it right after I send that email to M”. This is as close as we’ve come to talking about his report due to M. But I’m letting it be. For now.

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