Kathie Gagne died 4,641 days ago.
My mom’s friend from church called me and left me the following voice mail:
Hi, David. It’s [name redacted]. Just wanted to touch base and see if you all had a chance to talk to Kathie’s doctors, and got a plan of some type going. If you could, give me a call when you have time, bring me up to date. It would be helpful. Thank you.
My mom took this photo of herself. I found it on her cell phone about two weeks after her death. It’s terribly blurry. I don’t know if she was playing with the camera and took the photo by accident or if she was trying to learn how to use the new phone or what.
I can’t ask her now, so I’ll never know.
When I charged her phone, I saw that her background had been set to a picture of me and my son. We were sitting in bed wearing Gator shirts and watching football. I wonder how many times she opened the flip phone and saw that photo of her son and her grandson and smiled.
On November 11th, 2011, I sent my mom a card for Thanksgiving using the Apple Cards iOS app. It’s a great app to use for sending physical greeting cards to people that aren’t likely to enjoy an ecard. When I sent it to her, I really had no idea how much she was struggling.
On the front of the card there is a photo of my son sitting in a field of pumpkins. Inside I wrote:
Happy Thanksgiving, Mom!
Hopefully next year we’ll all be together!
Until then, know that you are loved and missed!
In early March of 2013, I found it in a big box of assorted paperwork. Inside it was another photo of my son I had sent her, on the back of which she had written, “My First grandson,” in a strange, chunky, block lettering that looks nothing like her perfect Palmer method penmanship that I know.
Here is a fragment of a journal entry I wrote on November 11th, 2011:
I called my mom this morning and talked to her for the whole drive from Starbucks to the office. It was as sad as sad can be. I sort of snapped at her right off the bat for pretending to not recognize my voice. For the last 6 or 12 months, every time I call she acts as if she has no idea who I am at first until I tell her. This morning I told her it was insulting and hurt my feelings and she told me she’d stop doing that. We’ll see…
The rest of the conversation was as frustrating as any other lately. She doesn’t make a ton of sense and can’t really communicate. I’d ask a question and she’d forget what the question was by the time she was 1/2 a sentence into her answer, then she’d trail off or just change the topic altogether without acknowledging it at all. So it’s very frustrating / heartbreaking to talk to her.
She seemed groggy, as if she had only just gotten out of bed, and, in fact, she said that she had only just woken up. Unfortunately she is not reliable any more, there is no reason to believe anything she says because she had no concept of reality.
I asked her repeatedly if she had any plans for the day. Aside from telling me multiple times that she had only just gotten out of bed, even though it was 10:30 am for her — she couldn’t describe anything other than “reading the Bible.” When I pulled into the parking lot here at work, I asked her what part of the Bible she’s reading and she said, “Joshua”.
David Gagne
Here are a couple of photos my sister sent me from a wedding party my mom attended. They were taken either just before or just after Halloween, so I’m guessing on the date.
Within six weeks of these photos being taken, she’d be institutionalized and hospitalized, never see her beloved dog or cat again, and spend the next nine months perpetually drugged into a stupor, panicked and anxious, and repeatedly falling down until the day she died.
I received the following email from mom’s friend from her Church in Florida:
David,
I took your mom to Dr. Oh two Wednesdays ago. He is her private doctor with his own office and he is paid when services are rendered. She normally pays — this time I fronted her the money and [name redacted] reimbursed me.Her meds are as follows:
- Metoprolol ER 100 mg
- Citalopram 40 mg
- Lisinopril (internal LB) 10 mg
- Folic Acid 800 mcg
- Calcium 600 mg with vitamin D
- Fish Oil 1000 mg
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.
Here are some portions of an email my sister sent me:
[…] I was having a couple of sad days just grieving over Mom and what is happening in her head. She asked me if I wanted to come to her house Friday night for dinner. It broke my heart because she was sincere, and I would love to be able to go. And what you said about her reading you your card. Just feeling sad about it all.
Have you asked [name redacted] about the psychological test yet? I think we need to decide. Too much time passes in between conversations with Doctors and action. […] we need to talk more about decisions that may need to be made. Do you know if you are her power of attorney? That is another thing that we should get figured out for sure. Just because. […] Please talk to [name redacted] about the test. Or anyone you know who knows more about this stuff than me. […]
My sister sent me this email:
Yo, Bro.
I talked to [name redacted] this morning. She hasn’t talked to Mom since Sunday, but I am sure she is fine.
[name redacted] says that Dr. Fulop, the neurologist, is not happy with Dr. Oh. I am not entirely thrilled with him either and think it would be good to be looking (or asking [name redacted], etc) for another psychiatrist, as well as a counselor. He did renew her prescription for 40mg of Citalopram a day but said that Mom has to request to be put on anti-anxiety meds. ([name redacted] asked if she should be on abilify or something and that is what he told her.)
Dr. Fulop wants to do some neuro-cognitive testing to determine the extent of Mom’s dementia – if it is psychological or something more. She recommended 2 psychologists in the area, Dr. Kathryn Billiot and Dr. Meril Sohn. [name redacted] was able to talk to Dr. Sohn who said that if the testing goes, worst-case scenerio, from 9am-4pm, it would cost $1440. I said I thought it would be good to have [name redacted] speak to Dr. Fulop or one of these other doctors.
I told [name redacted] that we want to find someone to watch her take her meds everyday. I suggested, since [name redacted] takes her to church on Sundays, that covers that day. Then, if [name redacted] is able to get in a routine with Mom, she could maybe go Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to make sure Mom takes her meds, but also to get her into s schedule – like Mondays they grocery shop for the week, Wednesdays the beach…something something. Then, if we could find an RN or someone who would go there the other 3 days and do meds and help her with more domestic stuff, making sure the house is getting cleaned and her laundry is done and other appointments, that would allow her time with [name redacted] to be more fun. Maybe having that kind of pattern, would help her.
I don’t know. What do you and [name redacted] think? The sooner we find someone to do this the better because any meds she periodically takes before then is a waste. […]
