Some say it's like trying to unravel a sweater where the yarn loops and curls against itself and gets tangled into huge knotty balls. Others say it's similar to a moth eaten sweater, full of holes and thin spots. Those are two descriptions I've heard of the damage Alzheimer's can do to a brain. No matter how you describe it, the afflicted brain cannot function normally.

It's not hereditary, but it does seem to run in families. My mother's family is one of them. Her mother and sister had it and both died at age 78. She is 77. In an earlier post, I wrote that she had a screening for cognitive problems and memory loss and didn't pass. She refused to address the problem by getting some follow up testing done now, and wanted to leave for Florida as soon as possible, probably Sunday.

Then on Monday evening she agreed to getting tested - if she could get in soon - and told me to go ahead and get an appointment. Unfortunately, she had shredded her report from the screening, so I had to ad lib the phone calls.

No matter, Tuesday morning I was able to schedule her for testing at two excellent places in town. But they weren't until Dec. 22. It turns out that when she said she'd stay if the testing could be done soon, she meant before Sunday. I tried to explain that no one was even working on Friday, etc. and she needed to be a bit more patient. But she began screaming at me instead.

She calmed down for a while, and then went off on another tear. After about an hour of that, I left and came home. I made more calls and got her an appointment for Thursday. The doctor squeezed her must have canceled or pushed back whatever else he had planned for that time.

People have gone out of their way to work her into their schedules and get her tested before her insurance runs out on Dec. 31 and so she can leave for Florida. I deserve a medal for all the hours I've spent on the phone in the last two days.

After I left her house yesterday, she called twice to ask questions about the testing. I didn't answer the third time and then I turned my phone off. I called her back after my night out around 10:30. When I did, she was angry and accused me of stealing her photo album.

I'm starting to feel my boundaries get all fuzzy. I have to step back from all this and quit trying to convince her to do this. She either will do it or she won't. I'm giving it back to her at this point.

If she says she won't wait for the appointment until next Thursday, I'm simply going to give her the phone numbers and let her cancel the appointments and then drop it.

Update: As expected, when I told her of the Thursday appointment, the first words out of her mouth were, "I won't be here then." I sure didn't see much difference between an appointment on Monday or one 3 days later. But, of course, she had another excuse - this must be the fourth one. She said she has plans in Florida and that people are counting on her. She couldn't remember who these people were or what the plans were...

I didn't stick to my plan - I tried to guilt her a bit by stressing how much extra effort so many people had gone to in order to get her right away so she could leave. I said more but that was the main idea. And I did give her the phone number and told her to cancel it herself.

Now, she is "thinking" about it. She called me a couple hours after I got home from our dinner and said she would call the group and find out if they could get along without her. She finally remembered that she's supposed to teach a craft lesson to her Red Hat Group. Today was the first time I heard of this meeting. The other objections were because she hates this cold weather here; she is worried about being able to get through on the roads in all the ice and snow; and that leaving Sunday is part of her life plan. I'm not kidding, she says stuff like that all the time.