Mom Is Acting Weird

I first noticed Mom acting "weird" over a year ago. She would forget why she'd just called me, she needed security to help her find her car in a parking lot, she stopped having the family over for weekly dinners, and Christmas 2007 she told me that when she went to the store, she'd forget what she came for. She also told me her thoughts kept swirling around in her head, and she couldn't get them to stop. She told her doctor she was having some memory problems, but he chalked it up to simple aging. She was 63. In June 2009, she forgot my birthday. The next day was my cousin's son's graduation party. She brought my birthday card to that event but forgot the graduation card. My birthday card was blank.

Later in the month, we spent a weekend together in the coastal mountains. She drove. It was terrifying. She tailgated at high speeds and didn't seem aware of the cars around her. She drove so fast that she fishtailed around curves along a cliffside on a gravel road. We shared a room in a lodge. She snored all night long. I didn't sleep for 2 nights. I talked with my dad, and he was concerned about her driving as well. We got her in to see a sleep specialist who diagnosed severe sleep apnea. She's been sleeping with a C-PAP machine ever since, but we've seen no change in her mental or physical state. If anything, she's worse. She may have sleep apnea, but it's not the cause of her symptoms like we'd hoped. We told her she can't drive anymore last July. We thought it would be temporary, but it's not. She used to pick up my kids from school for me. She can't do that anymore.