My mother can no longer spell her name. Truth be told, there may be days when she doesn't know her name, but that's a whole other story.
When we go out and her credit card has to be used as the method of payment, things get interesting as she has to be talked through the spelling of her name. B-A-R-B. With increasing frequency, it's at that second 'b' that we get in to trouble. For some unknown reason - who am I kidding, the reason is well known: it's Alzheimer's disease - Mummy cannot write a lower case 'b', so her signature usually reads BarBara.
Of course, if you see someone being coached through the spelling of their own name, you might be inclined to think something was amiss, so I've now taken to explaining to cashiers that my mother has Alzheimer's disease and sometimes cannot remember how to spell her name. I also have to remember to carry some form of ID for her, just in case anyone gets suspicious. No one has looked at me askance yet, but I imagine it'll happen at some point.
I'm very tempted to buy a children's handwriting practice book or to download practice pages off the internet, but Mummy is sufficiently aware to resent the implication and yet sufficiently ill to need the help. Que faire? What to do? That's rhetorical question, I'm not going to 'do' anything. I'ma just roll with it.
When we go out and her credit card has to be used as the method of payment, things get interesting as she has to be talked through the spelling of her name. B-A-R-B. With increasing frequency, it's at that second 'b' that we get in to trouble. For some unknown reason - who am I kidding, the reason is well known: it's Alzheimer's disease - Mummy cannot write a lower case 'b', so her signature usually reads BarBara.
Of course, if you see someone being coached through the spelling of their own name, you might be inclined to think something was amiss, so I've now taken to explaining to cashiers that my mother has Alzheimer's disease and sometimes cannot remember how to spell her name. I also have to remember to carry some form of ID for her, just in case anyone gets suspicious. No one has looked at me askance yet, but I imagine it'll happen at some point.
I'm very tempted to buy a children's handwriting practice book or to download practice pages off the internet, but Mummy is sufficiently aware to resent the implication and yet sufficiently ill to need the help. Que faire? What to do? That's rhetorical question, I'm not going to 'do' anything. I'ma just roll with it.
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