It's Super Bowl Sunday. The Green Bay Packers are playing the Pittsburgh Steelers. Matt and I are having a little party; a few friends from college and Matt's fantasy football buddies. We have some trivia games planned, a little football pool where everyone buys a box and the winners are announced at the end of the quarters, and of course some food. I got a party tray of sandwiches at Panera and I made a few appetizers and desserts myself. Just a few more last minute things at the grocery store to buy and I'll be ready.
I get to the store, grab a shopping cart and head toward the entrance. The store is more busy than usual, everyone's picking up their last minute snacks before the game starts. Coincidentally, I see Frank go in the entrance ahead of me. It's clear he's on a mission. He's walking quickly and he's stopping and looking up every aisle. I know this because I'm following him. I'm curious to know what he's after and why he's in such a hurry. He has no idea that I'm right behind him throughout the store. He hasn't picked up anything yet, but he's looking very hard. Finally, in the last aisle he pauses and I call his name, "Frank!". He turns around quickly and looks at me with big eyes like he's surprised to see me there. "What's up?" I ask smiling.
He's practically breathless, he answers me quick like he's in a hurry, "Oh, they got me all over. I'm here, I'm going there. I'm looking for that stuff, you know that stuff you get, . . . like when somebody dies . . .?"
"Umm, like a cookie tray?" I ask. I'm trying to think of what you eat when somebody dies, but I don't know. But his question freaks me out a little bit.
He looks at me and his expression changes, like he just now realized who I am and he's come back to reality. I said "Frank, are the people back?"
"Oh . . . no, . . . no. I just came for ice cream." He just happened to be standing in front of the ice cream freezer so he grabbed a quart and said, "this is what I needed."
"Oh, okay, well, enjoy the game." I said.
"Yeah." Frank answered and walked away.
This has me worried, really worried. The hallucinations have him on a mission to buy something, who knows what. But I'm wondering what other commands he has followed or would follow in the future. I am afraid to even think about it. I can't wait to go home and tell Matt. I'm just happy that I was coincidentally there to witness it. I realize that we have to do something because this is getting serious.
The next day Matt calls a guy he knows who runs the psychiatric ward in a small private hospital near his office. He tells Luther about Frank's behavior and asks him if we could admit Frank for evaluation. Apparently, it's not easy to get in but Matt has known Luther professionally for a few years now and he tells Matt to bring Frank in through the Emergency Room next Thursday and he'll see what he can do.
We explain to Frank that we want to find out what's wrong with him and see if we can get it fixed. Frank looks back at us with the same serious expression that we are looking at him with and says "yeah, okay."
That Thursday Matt and I take Frank to the ER. It's really busy for a Thursday afternoon. We check in, do all the paperwork and soon they call us back to the triage area. They give us a gurney in the hallway because all the examining rooms are busy. Frank sits on the gurney while Matt and I stand next to him. I hear the teenage girl in the room right in front of us crying and talking on the phone to her mom. She cut her hand at school somehow and she had to get stitches. Her mom arrives about 30 minutes later, and after talking to the doctor they leave together. The next room is a woman obviously looking for drugs. I hear the doctor say to her, "I can give you Naprosyn." She starts wailing, "But doctor, I'm in alot of pain!" He tells her that he can't offer her anything else and walks away. Then she gets on her phone and starts crying to someone about how much pain she's in and complaining that the doctor won't give her anything. Matt and I look at each other skeptically. We have been just standing here in the hallway for about two hours. Matt and I are playing silly games to keep ourselves occupied while Frank just sits and stares. We play an alphabet game where we take turns going through the alphabet naming things in certain categories. First we pick rock band category. I choose AC/DC, Matt says "Beatles" I tell him that I hate the Beatles and pick Coldplay for 'c', and on it goes. After that category, we move on to tv shows, Matt begins with 'Arrested Development', then I say 'Bridezillas", then we do snack foods, movies and finally drug names before this becomes boring also.
Finally, a doctor comes over and asks why we're here. Matt explains that his brother is having hallucinations. The doctor asks Frank what his name is. He knows that. He answers "Frank . . Frank" Then he asks what day it is and Frank says it's September; it's January. The doctor asks who the president is and Frank answers "the cowboy", which is a pretty good answer for George W. The doctor tells us that they have a psych ward but it's full and he tries to get rid of us. Matt tells him that Luther told us to come today and he changes his story. He calls up to the ward and we find out that today is Luther's day off even though he told us to come today. It takes about another hour of communication between the ward and the ER before we finally get Frank up to the seventh floor. It seems the only way we got in is because Matt knows Luther though. If we were just walking in off the street, we'd be back on it by now.
I'm exhausted from sitting around doing nothing for hours. We get Frank settled and walk around the ward with him. Hopefully, he'll make friends. It looks like everyone there is about his age. They're all hanging out in a community room watching tv. Frank doesn't look like he wants to be friendly though. When we leave he goes to his room.
Luther said not to visit for a few day so Frank adjusts to life on the ward. On the third day, Matt stops by. Frank doesn't seem happy or sad to see Matt but he wants to go home. "Can we go home now?" Frank wants to know. Matt talks to the nurse to see how things are going. She says that when Frank first got there they found him hiding behind the door to his room talking to his hallucination even though he denied seeing anything. They have to coax him out of his room because he prefers to sleep all day. He hasn't interacted with anyone, but goes into other people's rooms; maybe he's lost or maybe he just doesn't know better anymore. Matt leaves and Frank asks again if he can go home. "No Frank, you have to stay here for a couple weeks until they figure out what's wrong." Matt explains. "I'll be back tomorrow." with that, Matt leaves.
Frank's behavior doesn't improve. The staff try to get Frank involved in ward activities, but he doesn't participate. Even the other patients try to get Frank involved but he doesn't care to interact. Someone was missing their radio and it was found in Frank' room. That didn't make him very popular. Every day when Matt visits, Frank asks if he can go home now. Finally, after two and a half weeks, they discharge Frank with a diagnosis; Frontotemporal Dementia. The psychiatrist isn't surprised that Frank is in the middle of a divorce. He said that many marriages of FTD sufferers end in divorce before they even realize they have the disease, mostly due to the personality changes. The emotional disconnection with the disease is perceived as lack of commitment to the relationship but the reality is that the person who has the disease doesn't realize that any changes have occurred.
The dementia diagnosis is bad news because now we have no psychiatric options open to us for Frank's care. Frontotemporal Dementia is considered a medical condition so we only have nursing homes to explore now. Frank is immediately discharged from the psych ward into our care because he doesn't have a psychiatric condition. I try to explain to Matt that we shouldn't take him back. We should tell the hospital that we can't take care of him and let them figure it out, but Matt insists that we can all pitch in and see that Frank is cared for. I don't know why no one ever listens to me.
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