Getting Mom to the doctor’s office is a battle from the first moment you alert her to an impending appointment until you walk through the door of the office. No matter the reason for the appointment she will insist it is unnecessary.

Imagine sitting next to a person with a broken foot, neatly tucked into a walking boot and have her respond “My foot isn’t broken! It feels perfectly fine. It doesn’t even hurt!” Pointing out the obvious medical boot on the end of her leg, unwrapping it and showing the swollen foot….none of this will convince my Mother.

These are the times her dementia makes me angriest, not at her but at the condition. I resent how it takes control of her reasoning. But despite her protestations, we always manage to make to her appointments. Nonetheless her suspicion and insistence never diminishes right up until the moment the doctor steps into the room.

On our most recent doctors visit, while waited our turn in the examining room, Mom was peeping along under her breath about the unwarranted appointment when I finally turned to her and said “Mother you have a broken foot so why are you so insistent that we don’t need to be here? ” She replied “Because doctors try to talk you into all sorts of stuff you don’t need!”

I laughed at the nonsensical comment but was drawn in by now and said “I can’t imagine where you got such a suspicious attitude of physicians?  You were married to one for 57 years!” She looked at me sideways and said “That is exactly where it started!”