Hello again
Well the appointment yesterday was a revelation! Even I hadn't realised how much worse my husband had become during the past year. He was OK on the straightforward day, month, year, season, drawings and drawing a clockface. He gave strange answers when asked where we were but after several questions he got there. He struggled with remembering lists of objects, he always has but worse thus time. The areas he struggled most with were logic and sequencing and how much he struggled really surprised me. He also struggled with following instructions - fold a piece of paper in half and put it on the floor. He folded it but gave it back. When asked to say as many words beginning with f as he could in a minutes he got six. Afterwards he told me that he thought the chap would be impressed with the words he'd given because they were all long words. I explained that the idea was to give as many words as possible, he said I know but it shows I'm not stupid! I gave up at this point. I've learned to pick my arguments!
I mentioned that he has difficulty following conversations and the plot on TV programmes. He retorted that he doesn't its because people don't speak clearly, they mumble on TV.
The outcome was that the nurse said he had to discuss it with the consultant tomorrow but he thought they might diagnose MCI which may or may not develop into something else. I don't think my husband understood any of this but agreed to him discussing it and phoning us afterwards.
Afterwards I was still feeling unhappy that I hadn't Ben able to tell him a lot of my concerns so I made an excuse to go out and I phoned the nurse. He was happy to talk to me and I offered to take in written observations if it would be helpful. He said it would. I also made it clear I didn't want my husband to be made awarded that I'd given them more information, he promised it would be kept confidential.
The thing that really surprised me was that if they diagnosed MCI there would be no further contact with the hospital or memory clinic, no ongoing support, just refer back to the GP. I told him that I would be very unhappy if that were the case and that I really need someone to talk to for help and advice at the end of a phone at the very least.
Thus afternoon the nurse phoned to say that the consultant wants my husband to increase his dose of antidepressant to double and she would like to see him in about four weeks. I said that wouldn't go down well because he was wanting to decrease the dose because he thinks they are making him sleepy during the day. The nurse said the shouldn't but the higher dose often has the opposite effect. Predictably when I told my husband h wasn't happy about it, he said he doesn't want a higher dose and doesn't see the need to go back because he's not that bad! Is this just genuinely what he believes or is it a form of denial and if he doesn't acknowledge the problem it doesn't exist?! Who knows.
I'm now feeling terribly guilty for asking for the referral and for giving more information. My daughter tells me I shouldn't, I've done the right thing but it feels like betrayal at the moment.
Does anyone have any thoughts?