Hope.

Hope is such a fickle thing. One minute it’s there, then it’s gone, then it’s there again. 

I honestly had no expectations this morning. I came to this doctor’s appointment mainly because my dad can’t hear well and my mom can’t remember things, so we figured we needed someone able to communicate with the doctor. 

After our last appointment I have just kind of been done with doctors. We’ve struggled to get into another doctor in Oklahoma City and so when a friend recommended this doctor at Texas Tech it seemed like a good option for us. 

They’d said great things about him. They didn’t lie. 

The very first thing he did was meet with my dad and me. He took us in a separate room, pulled up a chair and talked to us. We started at the beginning. He asked questions as we went and sometimes just listened to let us get it all out. Then he took us back to the lobby and went and met with mom for about an hour. We both were so impressed. Never, not once did our previous doctor talk to us without mom present. In the half hour we spent with Dr. Wu he spoke to us more than our previous doctor ever had. One of the things I liked best was he didn’t just talk at us. He heard us. He wrote down our concerns. He offered advice. Such a difference! 

After meeting with mom, he called us all together. This is the gist of what he told us. (For those of you who might be curious gist is defined as :). 

He is not convinced my mother has Lewy Body Dementia. He absolutely agrees there is something very wrong but he’s not sure yet what that is. It is a very real possibility it could be dementia. However, there are some very important tests that were never completed that we need the answers to in order to have a complete understanding of what we are dealing with then. For example, no one has checked to make sure there is not an infection that has affected part of her brain. So he has ordered a few tests. We are going to do an MRI and then a spinal tap. Then he will meet with us again to discuss results. The spinal tap alone can check for up to 50 different causes for what is happening to her. One of my very favorite things he said is that he believes we need to figure out the CAUSE. You can throw medicine at anything but if you aren’t fixing the CAUSE it’s a waste of time. 

Speaking of meds. He took her off hers. He says that the Alzheimer’s meds we were on is actually not beneficial at all. It is basically the standard med for a neurologist to prescribe who is just not sure what is actually causing the ailments. So until we know unequivocally what we are dealing with we don’t need those meds. He also said those meds could be contributing to her nightmares and dreams. He also changed up another drug that he was very unhappy they had put her on.

Mom deals best in specifics these days so at the end of the visit she asked him if he thinks she does not have dementia. He told her honestly he wants to be sure. There are too many other things that it could be that no one checked for before giving us a diagnosis. He told her that he wants to find out what we are dealing with so that he can find the best course of treatment. He explained that if it is alzheimer’s or dementia, it cannot be treated, but it can be managed. 

You guys, his staff left at 12:00 to go to lunch, we’d been there since 9:30. He stayed with us talking until 12:50. Never once did he try to rush us out. He let us keep asking questions, he let mom repeat most of the questions she had already asked twice. He was so kind to us. 

We know that the reality is most likely still dementia, but we have someone who is willing to help us versus throwing a med at us and telling us let’s catch up in a year and see how things are. 

I don’t really think he gave me hope of a different diagnosis (other than I don’t think he thinks for one minute we are dealing with Lewy Body Dementia) but I think he gave me hope that we can try things. We don’t have to just sit back and hope that one day something might help. He gave me hope that there are doctors who care about more than just medicine; they care about their patients. 

I saw someone who invested in US today. He probably has no clue what that has meant to our little family in our little corner of the world. But it was huge. 

Who knows what the future will hold? I sure don’t. There will be many more ups and probably twice as many downs. There will be hard days and then even harder ones…but the end doesn’t feel like it is closing in on us. For this day the darkness feels just a little bit farther off. 

Isn’t that what hope is?