time for adjustment

Today we went in search of a watch. Jeff has had many watches over the years, and the most recent--a rugged but basic Timex, with white face and black hands--was selected with visual simplicity in mind. For several months now, he’ll catch sight of the watch counter as we make our way through stores, and say “Hey...I need a watch.”

"Is there something wrong with your watch?” I reply, realizing he has no idea we’ve had this conversation five or six times. “It’s just...” he says, looking at it. “It’s just...I just want a basic watch.”

I don’t know why I’m so slow, but I finally connected the dots after the third time I saw him walk over to the oven, stoop down, and squint at the control panel. We have two wall clocks in the greater kitchen/dining zone. One classic round, which I found on the clearance table at Williams-Sonoma quite a few years ago, and a more recent acquisition--directly from the Alzheimer’s Store online--a big, white standard clock-face over which resides a flip-type readout which tells us (today) that it’s “WED 3 FEB.” I rely on this calendar help quite a bit myself, as I tend to be lax where keeping track of dates is concerned. And for a while, Jeff remembered to look at this clock.

But now, the oven display. Which is, now that I thought about it, digital. This all makes sense. What is an analog clock, but a graphic, pie-chart representation of time? And what is a big thing Jeff can’t do? Read graphs.

Flashback to 2004. We and all 4 kids are visiting Jeff’s brother Wade in Boulder, Colorado. Wade is working, and we’ve decided to drive to Pike’s Peak, near Colorado Springs, to give oxygen deprivation a try. I’m driving south (by then, I mostly was driving,) in our rented minivan (completely inadequate, I might add, for Rocky Mountain terrain,) and I want to know, for my own sense of orientation, how much ground we’ve covered between Boulder and Colorado Springs. With the sense of foreboding that goes with doing something about which you know better, I hand Jeff the Colorado highway map. “Find Boulder,” I say. “It’s that smaller yellow blob, just northwest of Denver.” Jeff stares intently, as if staring intently will cause what has become--to him--nothing but a confusing array of lines and colors to make sense. I realize what I had suspected: He can no longer read maps. At this point, I know I should forget about my desire for orientation and live with the uncertainty of being “somewhere” between Denver and Colorado Springs, but instead, I ask Jeff if he would mind giving the map to Rachel, who is sitting in the seat behind him. He has a mini temper-tantrum and throws it behind him. Rachel orients me, and I’ve learned something new about Jeff’s cognition, 3 years pre-diagnosis.

So I realize what has happened. Jeff can’t read an analog clock. We need to find him a digital watch. After rejecting the too-expensive options at assorted mall kiosks, we stop at Kohl’s on the way home, and I zero in on a Timex Expedition with nothing going on but the time and date. It is in a counter-top case, with many other Timex models. Jeff points to a plain-looking analog. “How about that one?” he says, “it looks simple.” In fact, I say to myself, it looks just like the watch you already have, and it occurs to me, then and there, to conduct a small clinical test. “Let’s see which watches are easiest to read,” I say. (I am helped in this test, by the fact that none of these watches have been set to the proper time, so they’re all different.) Then, I point to various of them and ask him to tell me what time it reads. Each time I point to a digital he tells me straight away. “3:32, 6:28, 11:05.” When I point to an analog, he hangs...like a computer with frozen software. “Uhhh...” And I switch to a different, digital one.

We choose the light brown one. He likes it. He does not realize why he can read some and not others. He thinks the ones he can’t read are just “too busy” or something.

We stop for a treat at Baltimore Coffee & Tea. For Jeff, this means simply coffee. For me, this means a “Snow Angel” Latte--chocolate and vanilla with soymilk. We take turns using the facilities. When it is Jeff’s turn, he heads to the rear of the shop. This is what you see: two doors, plainly marked, with tea displays to the left and right. I am watching. He doesn’t know what to do. He peers at both doors, then turns to the tea shelves on the right to see if they’ll provide any assistance. I hurry to the back of the store, turn the handle to the men’s room and say “right here.” Brains are complex, and they fail complexly.