Flashback: July 2009
Daddy and I had one to the eye glasses store to get an exam and pick up some new contacts for me / glasses for him. He's always prided himself on his 20/20 vision, but recently the dollar store readers just weren't cutting it. As we're filling out the mandatory forms, I notice my daddy is going really slow and seems a bit confused while filling in his answers. I made a mental note to myself: "One day I'll have to take care of my daddy" He was 55 years old.Over the next year and 3 months, daddy got into 2 wrecks: one of which he had no idea what happened. Would increasingly get frustrated at ATMs, fastfood and store cashiers (he couldn't work the card machines). He refused to use one gas station, insisting that they would not let you buy gas. We thought maybe it was because he'd been working the night shift. During the summer of 2010, the Dr. gave my dad some meds to help: uppers & downers. Physically he looked better, but the confusion remained.
It hits the fan: Halloween weekend 2010
My mother in law was moving into our house and daddy helped by driving the moving van. He'd been taking a lot of vacation lately, but since he had a good bit we weren't too concerned. While packing up my Mil's house - my dad was acting a bit out of it. I overheard him on a phone call with a work buddy and could tell something was up at work. We asked daddy what was going on and he said he couldn't remember if he requested the time off he'd been taking.
While making the 2 and a half hour drive from my mil's house to mine, my daddy followed the car I was driving. Once we arrived he let us know that if he had not been watching my car he doesn't know if he would have made it home. That was the last day he drove. He went back to the Dr. Then off to the Neurologist. Finally a Neuro Psychologist for testing.
The neuro psychologist told my dad if he didn't know better he would have thought daddy was trying to fail the testing in order to get on disability. This didn't sit too well with daddy as he's the hardest working man I know. A few weeks later I read the report from the testing. Going over new words I'd never heard. Aphasia, FTD, Pick's disease, Alzheimer's was the only word I had previously known. So I did what I do.. research. Well after reading about FTD I thought, that's it, that's what my dad has. I was the first one to diagnose my daddy. The other Drs. just said he had early onset Alzheimer's. Since he was so young we went to get a second opinion. On February 2011 he was officially diagnosed with FTD. Thankfully his new Dr. was a specialist in FTD.
