Greetings from the new normal. →[More:]So, my dad had a doctor's appointment yesterday, a court intake date this morning, a first appointment with a neurologist later this morning, and a follow-up with his internist this afternoon.

Yesterday his G.P. convinced him (or my mom and I, really) to stop his self-medication with everything from antacid to acetaminophen.

This morning I took him to court. We were early, of course, for an 8 a.m. call. He had been potentially charged with O.W.I. for driving with all his meds (though an ethanol test came back negative, he was on a run do get more vicodin), but they understood that he has cognitive issues and very kindly only gave him two tickets -- for damaging county property (three signs) and not reporting an accident. He didn't want to sign the voluntary license surrender, and his G.P. told him there was no way she could give him a "pass" on the medical questionnaire. So he didn't get his license status resolved by intake, which could have meant avoiding court altogether. But he doesn't want to plead guilty, because he says he was trying to stop the cop to report it. Possibly true, but basically irrelevant, as he was driving a wrecked vehicle down a city street at 3 or 4 a.m.

Anyway, the first thing was that he didn't understand the metal detector and security check. He took all his stuff out of his pockets, then expected the bailiff to give them right back to him. "I need my glasses!" I tell him (from the other side) that I *already have* his glasses.

Then we are in the court room, and I take the opportunity to go over to the windows to look over the downtown. I turn around, and he's disappearing through the door to the judges' chambers! I drag him back from there. "I need to tell them I have a medical appointment," he objects. I tell him if he wanders around the courthouse, he will get arrested. He scoffs but sits down.

Then he wants to write a note to the judge on his business card and doesn't have a pen, so next thing I know he's up at the dais rummaging around where the clerks sit! I drag him back again. When the bailiff appears, he goes up to the guy, mentions the doctor, and gets told "Everybody in this room has someplace else they'd rather be, sir."

Finally when he gets before the commissioner, he is so confused by the procedure -- he has an option to plead guilty/no contest here and pay a fine, but any dispute or modification of the charges requires a new court date before a judge -- that people in the courtroom are laughing at him. I had stayed seated because one husband and one mother had already been reproached by the commissioner for interjecting themselves into proceedings, but I will probably have to be up there as "interpreter" at least next time. He keeps trying to show the commissioner his large-size county map and insisting that the charges are incorrect, so the commissioner has to enter a "presumably not guilty plea". (The cornrowed gangbanger next to me says "What a clown!")

Then we go to the neurologist. First thing is that, having stopped at home, he wants to leave for the clinic right away. Two or three times he forgets that I have said I'm staying through his appointmnet, but he thinks I'm dropping him off. I'm trying to prune some yews to make use of the half hour, but he wants to sit in the van in the hot sun and nag me until I agree to drive him over there 20 minutes early. (Well, there are worse things on a day like today than sitting in an airconditioned lobby, but I have a long to-do list.) As the nurse seats him he has to have doing a self-blood pressure monitor explained to him (he used to do it daily). Then he asks for the door to be open so he can watch for my mother, and the nurse explains that HIPAA requires them to close the doors for patient privacy. (He never gets this. He wants to kibitz within a foot or two while a nurse is dealing with someone because he "just has a quick question", and gets miffed when they "rudely" tell him to step back.)

The neurologist has reviewed his EEG from last week and says it's basically normal. He rules out Alzheimer's at this stage and gives us a diagnosis (the first real one!) of "mild cognitive impairment", which can develop into it but not exclusively. There will be more tests for vascular causes. During this, my mom mentions that he has had personality changes, and my dad pulls a classic mincing passive-aggressive non-sequitur, "I should mention that I'm not the only one in this family who has undergone a personality change!" The doctor looks at my mom and me, then says carefully, "Perhaps, but you are the only one in this family who is my patient." He was also proudly showing the doctor the juvenile library book on Alzheimer's he was reading, which my mother had taken out for my impaired nieces.

We have to wait until October for the big-city hospital neuropsychologist to give him the workup. (Damn socialized medicine! Er .... wait ....) He still has to go back to court. But at least we have a diagnosis for now.

The capper was that he insisted on staying at the clinic until his 2 o'clock, but 15 minutes ago he called me and said "They changed it to 2, so you should come then." I told him it was ALWAYS at 2. I guess letting him wander around the clinic for three hours was a worse idea than I thought (and I didn't think it was a good one to begin with, but per the passive-aggression, he's no fun to argue with.)

And, oh yes, we had some prospective new tenants yesterday, but then they turned out to have an eviction this year already. And I overheard the grandson of the nice Hispanic grandmother who is, but isnt' supposed to be, living with her making a business arrangement with a black gangbanger who reveled in the black-Hispanic aspect of their alliance and then suddenly said, "Don't cross me, or I'll fuck you up, and my friends will fuck you up worse."

She's a sweet lady, but we can't have her if she's a pushover for drug dealers in her family.