First off, this is not a solicitation of medical advice. The person in question is under a doctor’s care as far as I know. Not at this minute, but as a general thing.
The whole thing is laid out here, but the questions are at the end if you want to skip it. It is really long.
This is a long-time friend of mine, who has been known, from time to time, to be a little ditzy, but I saw her recently and I think she’s in real trouble.
We got together for a drink, which is our usual deal. She arrived late, which is usual, and staggering, which is not usual. I genially accused her of starting without me and she denied it–then, instead of ordering a drink, she ordered a soft drink to start off with.
She has lost a lot of weight since I last saw her. As far as I know she wasn’t trying, and I didn’t mention it. I figured I’d let her mention it.
But she was quite out of it. She started talking about something she said we’d discussed last time we were together (a couple of weeks), and when I asked her what she was talking about she said she was having kind of a hard time gathering her thoughts. Then she said, “You know, we were talking about it when we got together at Rosie’s.”
This came out of the blue. I don’t know Rosie. I don’t even know who Rosie is. I still didn’t know what the hell she was even talking about. I said, “Who’s Rosie?”
Her reply? “Nobody knows who Rosie is. Some people say it was about the black plague, ashes, ashes. But there’s no actual person.”
At this point I was getting really freaked out.
Then, she lit a cigarette. Now, it’s been a year since you could light up in bars in Colorado, and that is all of them. There were always a lot of nonsmoking restaurants and bars. Now they all are. Nobody came and told her to put it out but she kept dropping the cigarette, like she couldn’t hold it in her hand. When I said she couldn’t smoke inside she said, “No, you can smoke here, I always have.” (This is true. Until a year ago.)
So I said, “Well, but they passed that law.”
She said, “What law, when? What are you talking about?”
I said maybe we could go outside to the patio. She said she’d love to go sit outside on MY patio, and let’s get out of here.
Eek.
So we agreed to meet at my place and we both left.
Now, I live five minutes away. I got there, she arrived twenty minutes later, having had trouble finding the place. We live about eight blocks from each other, she’s lived at her place about a year longer than I’ve lived here, and that’s going on fifteen years…
She went in to use the bathroom and came out holding a brochure. This is some brochure for a housecleaning company that appeared on my door and somehow made its way into the bathroom, possibly because I was in need of reading material. She said (I paraphrase) “I knew you wanted one of these so I got two. Only this one got wet, so I need a paper towel or something.”
Me: “Oh, that. Just toss it.” Wondering: What the hell does she think it is?
Her: “Well, I got it for you, I thought you wanted it.”
Me: “What…you know what that is?” Thinking: Maybe she’s having vision trouble? Maybe she can’t read it?
She looks at it, says, “Well. Any fool can see it’s a brochure for a housecleaning company.”
Right. A few minutes later she went through a similar thing in the living room with a recent New Yorker. Obviously she had gotten SOMETHING on paper, which she thought I wanted, but I never could figure out what, exactly.
There was other weirdness, witnessed by my son, who was a bit baffled by it. Interspersed with a few interchanges that made perfect sense. It ended up with me saying I should drive her home. After a brief argument, when she said then her car would get a ticket, and I pointed out that I would drive her, in her car, and then walk back home, we went through this whole thing of her finding her keys, finding her spare keys, a brief but at least coherent discussion on why it’s not a great idea to keep your keys and your spare keys in exactly the same place, her taking everything out of her purse because she was looking for something but couldn’t remember what, then turning to me and muttering about how she didn’t really drop acid that morning, it just seemed like it…
Yikes! I have known her for more than 30 years. She never dropped acid. I was the acid freak, she was always afraid of it. But that was what it sounded like, all right.
I drove her home–her car was almost out of gas, I said something to that effect, and she said the gas gauge didn’t work and always said it was full. But it said it was empty. Then she said it was half full. Then she started giggling and wondering if it was half empty or half full. This was about the most lucid thing she said on the drive. She got home and I was afraid to leave her. She thought my staying was a good idea but said not to worry, her husband would be home any minute.
Me: “I thought he worked until 8.”
Her: “That’s during the week.”
Me: “Okay. What day is it?”
Her: “Ha! They always ask you that. It’s Saturday.”
Oh my god. (This happened Wednesday.)
I couldn’t stay until her husband got home. She said she was going to go get into bed and watch some rerun until The Philadelphia Story came on, which was at 8. Since I was walking, I wanted to get home before dark, which is also about 8. And shortly after that her husband would be getting home.
The questions: Should I talk to her husband?
On one hand I figure he should be aware of this weird interlude.
But maybe he’s already aware of it, in which case he wouldn’t want to be reminded.
So I’m kind of afraid to broach the subject, and worried about her.
I did call her as soon as I got home. She didn’t answer her phone. But she rarely ever answers her phone–she usually can’t find it. She hasn’t called me. I called again somewhat later, again no answer, making me wonder if he got home and took her to an ER.
Next question: If she comes out of it, I think I’m going to have to mention it to her, because something is going on that should be checked out. Not sure how to mention this. My usual thing would be to say something like, “Boy, you sure were wacked out the other day, are you better now?” But that would be assuming nothing serious, which in this case I do not assume.
I don’t know if it’s pertinent, but both her parents have Alzheimer’s. Her mother is in an Alzheimer’s home, her father is dead. They were both diagnosed in the late '90s within about two months of each other, but she’s in her 50s so surely it would be too early. I hope?