My mom’s friend from church sent me this email just three months before her life completely fell to pieces. The subject line was “your mom’s debit card”. After reading what she said about what Dr. Oh told her, I was (not for the last time) filled with tremendous hope that my mom would be able to recover from her depression.

Hey David,

Please have a replacement debit card for your mom 1 sent to my attention at my office at [redacted].

The first one never showed up. I don’t know what happened. It will be faster and easier if it is sent to my office. Maybe it could be sent to your home and then you can put it in an overnight envelope to my office.

I attended your mom’s last Dr. Oh appointment and he told us there is no magic memory pill, that the best thing for your mom to do is to do the following three things: establish a routine and stick to it, limit her sleep to 8 or less hours a night (no daytime napping or dozing) and 30 minutes of aerobic activity a day. He apparently has said this before – but now that I am aware of these instructions – I will be on Kathie to follow doctor’s orders every day. He said we would see results as early as a week’s time. He doesn’t want to change her meds, he has noted definite improvement since she started coming to him (markedly less depressed).


1 My mom lost her debit card. Of course just a day or two after we canceled it and had a new one ordered, she found it somewhere in her apartment.