Updates can be hard

Mark and Craig went to MacWorld.
Craig and Mark went to Upland and shot Gerald's hand cannon.
Mark crashed his bike and got twelve stitches on his right leg.
Mom is not doing well, she stays in her room and is very negative and
argumentative with Dad and Craig.
The whole family went to Greg Carr's home near Mt Shasta. No power or
phones, felt like living in Alaska.
Mark is doing well in school, his grades came in as A's and B's.
Mark has completed his application to Rio Lindo for next year.
Craig is too involved in commenting on the PUC/Triad negotiations and
plans.
Some in town question how much he got for his soul....
Craig was published in California Explorer magazine, Nov/Dec 2006 issue.
Article titled, Saratoga Springs, July Hiking in Death Valley.
Ok, all is up to date.

I was thinking

It seems like I have Alzheimer's on the brain.

No, not that way, just the thinking about it, what it is, what it
means, why it behaves the way it does. You know, useless deep
thoughts that mostly have no answers. But all that useless musing did
generate one thought. How long has this disease been eating away at
Mom's brain.

So I started to think back over the past years. I sorted through all
my digital pictures, I browsed through Linda's wonderful family
scrapbook albums, and here is what I discovered.

Christmas 2006. Not so good. Mom goes through a 10 day long bout of
serious confusion, fecal incontinence and generally dismaying
behavior. By New Years what ever it was seems to have passed, for
now, and she is back to her now normal confusion and talking to her
other self in bathroom mirrors.

August 2004. On a Sabbath afternoon when the folks were here at PUC
(Dad was probably working on plastering for PUC), Mom and I went down
to the Calistoga cemetery to take a picture of the tombstone of Eli
Philpott, (stagecoach driver for Wells Fargo killed near Tombstone,
AZ in the troubles building up to the OK corral shootout). Whole
different story there. On that afternoon I spoke with Mom about her
father and how she had the same condition he had before he died. She
came as close as she ever would to acknowledging there was a problem
but in her comments she emphasized that if she just kept walking
every day all would be well.

Christmas 2001. This was the last Christmas the whole family was
together. Kelvin and Brian and families came out from Tennessee and
we all pitched in for a wonderful Christmas at Dad and Mom's. We all
knew that Mom was sliding away. She did no cooking that Christmas, we
did it all from casseroles to artichokes, it was a wonderful time.

Thanksgiving 2000. Dad called me and asked me to cook a vegetarian
casserole for the Philpott family gathering at Uncle Earl's place
here in Angwin. Mom would not be cooking her usual dishes this year
and Dad would be buying the dinner rolls she usually made.

June 1998. Linda and I and Mark joined Dad and Mom on an RV trip to
Utah. I drove our old Pathfinder and Dad pulled the large 5th wheel
camper they had at the time. The trip was interspersed with flat
tires, four wheeling expeditions and normal traveling delays and Mom
was clearly changing in her ability to cope with stress or manage new
situations. She would break into tears over small disturbances and
she was less able to cope with surprises. While at Goblin Valley Park
in Utah, Dad joined my family in a back country 4x4 expedition that
last several hours longer then expected. Upon returning to camp
mother was beside her self with tears and fears that we were lost for
eternity and she would never see us again.

I just got off the phone with Dad where we shared some of the above
history and he thinks the changes were happening well before 1998,
maybe a couple years earlier, at least.

What does it mean? Nothing... and everything... just seems to show
that Mom is on a classic symptoms track and the next phase and the
ending phases after that are not so far off, should not come as a
surprise and... and... oh never mind.