Trouble ahead--need advice (long)

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?

I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up the phone and speak to her husband. Do it now.

I’d definitely talk to the husband. That’s just too weird.

They aren’t answering. (In case you’re wondering, yes, they do stay up this late. I called about an hour ago–no answer.)

I am pretty freaked out, but I’ll call him tomorrow.

I’m glad to hear it.

Don’t be afraid of upsetting the husband - you are coming from a position of care and concern for your friend.

I’d suggest something along the lines of “She was acting out of character and I’m really concerned about her” rather than “I think she’s whacked out on acid” - stick to describing the behaviours without any (potentially judgemental) assumptions about why she was behaving that way.

Even if he knows what’s wrong with her (and even if she’s under treatment), he’ll appreciate your concern.

For all you know, he may be just as worried, but not know what to do about it. Your call may be the push he needs.

They may not be answering because he’s already working on getting help for her.

I think you should definitely speak to him, it’s clear you care very much for your friend and he can’t possibly be angered if you explain to him that you’re acting out of concern for her. Her behaviour is so much out of character, you wouldn’t be much of a friend if you weren’t worried about her, and I would hope that he would be grateful for it.

I really hate to say this, but my father died of Early-Onset Alzheimers at 62. He’d had it for at least 10 years (probably longer - but we didn’t know it at the time). Mind you the staggering and losing weight doesn’t sound like dementia to me. Of course, I’m not a doctor.

Please talk to your friend’s husband, she needs to be checked out as soon as possible.

Talk to him. He won’t be offended, I can almost guarantee it. She may be, but it sounds like she really went off the beam and probably won’t argue the point.

Alzheimers can strike at a young age but I always thought it was so gradual that a fully blown episode such as what you described here would have many, many lead-ins of weird behavior prior to a major episode.

How sad. I hope they are able to help her.

It’s also not uncommon for spouses to ignore unusual, even bizarre, behavior. They sometimes tend to rationalize and deny. If her husband puts you off you might consider contacting another family member, siblings, children, etc.
IANADr., but I think those symptoms could be caused by a number of problems.

I don’t have anything to add except I can imagine how scary and upsetting this would be to see in your old friend and I’m sorry you got hit with this out of the blue. I hope she can get help.

As a non-Alzheimer’s possibility, I almost thought you were talking about one of MY friends, who, when re-balancing her neurological medications, had almost the same experience while visiting for a weekend–arrived almost an hour late for dinner, having got lost on a four-block walk down a straight street; went back to the dorm of the person she was “staying with” (who was out of town for a month) and wandered the halls for twelve hours; then finally we saw her wandering and drove her and her car home to her parents (we were all college kids at the time). All the while making bizarre passes at myself and my wife, and generally talking nonsense and acting spacey.

So yeah, call her husband. We can HOPE it’s just anti-seizure or anti-migraine meds that’ve been changed, right? Just saying it’s not just Alzheimer’s or acid that causes this sort of thing.

And of course, IANAD.

When my father began to behave abberantly, it was mostly characterized by not talking, by aphasia when he did talk, and by intense concentration on every task.

I don’t believe it was ever possible to have actually saved his life. Glioblastoma is almost always fatal. But had we recognized sooner that the issue was medical, not a personality quirk (he’d always been cranky), we could have had more quality time with him before he deteriorated.

I’m not saying your friend has a brain tumor, but I am suggesting you do more than urge she get a checkup. Talk to her husband and/or her doctor and urge that this needs serious investigation.

Sailboat

You say she’s lost a lot of weight. Could she be using a dieuretic and is suffering from dehydration? It can cause profound confusion. I guess I’m just looking for/hoping whatever’s causing this to be short term and reversable.

It sound slike someone spiked her drink. With acid. Or shrooms. Is she on any sort of medication?

I had an experience almost identical to this at work, and it turned out she had stopped taking her manic-depression/schizo meds. Whenever I tried to broach it she would get very resentful and erratic. She stopped showing up at work, until her brother flew in from out of town one day to tell us she had been holed up in her house with her children, refusing to let them out, so paranoid they feared for the kid’s safety and they took her to the ER and admitted her…

So yeah, talk to the husband.

If this is not drug-related (either illegal or prescribed medication gone wrong) then she could be showing signs of a stroke. I witnessed my mother in law in the early stages of a stroke and she was saying all kinds of wacky stuff. With the weight loss and everything though, I would bet that some kind of drug is most likely here. I have had family members with Alzheimers and they don’t start out that bad, although they do have good and bad episodes.

Either way something is wrong and she should be checked out by a Dr., so her husband does need to know (if he doesn’t already).

Any news??

Is she or could she be diabetic? My brother gets reaaalllly spacey when his blood-sugar is crashing.

Just in case no one has pointed it out, probably this.

I called today, hoping to catch her husband before he left for work, and she answered the phone (which she hardly ever does). She sounded a lot better, but she seems to be concealing it from him, and when I asked if I could talk to him for a minute she said he was busy getting ready for work, and then asked why I wanted to talk to him. I said, “You were really kind of spacy yesterday, I just wanted to make sure he was aware of it.” She said he knew about the problem and all was cool.

I don’t believe her. I don’t think he’d have gone off to work if he knew how truly weird her behavior had been. I don’t really trust her to tell him how weird her behavior was, because she kind of downplayed it. (Yeah, so did I, when I talked to her. “Kind of spacy” doesn’t even cover it.)

But, if she’s going to change her tune and answer the phone now, I don’t know how I can talk to him without going through her, and she discouraged that without saying she was discouraging it. I’m wondering if I should stick a note on his car.

But she seems okay today, anyway.