Fifty First Everythings All the Time

Last week I watched the movie Fifty First Dates for the first time, but instead of losing myself in a light rom-com, I was watching a variation of my own life.

In 2011, my oldest brother, Marty, suffered a grand mal seizure in which the postictal period—the time it takes for the brain to return to baseline—lasted five days. He was unable to make decisions for himself, and no one in the family knew if he had an advance directive. I was living in Pennsylvania, so our younger brother, Matthew, went to Marty’s house and looked through the files in his office.

“Guess who his power of attorney is?” he said when he called me. “Us!”

Matthew and I knew little about being a POA other than we could make decisions on someone’s behalf, but that “someone” was our older brother, who, despite his outgoing personality, kept his thoughts and feelings largely private.

In the immediate aftermath, we stumbled our way through, mostly dealing with paperwork like short-term disability insurance. Later, when it was clear that Marty had suffered permanent short-term memory loss, we had to step in when his finances were in question, which started happening with alarming regularity in 2019 when phone scammers convinced Marty to give them access to his checking account and stole nearly $11,000. Matthew made himself co-owner on Marty’s bank accounts, and both of us obtained online access to monitor every transaction Marty made. That worked until Marty changed the password because he forgot what it was and then forgot the new password, and we had to take away his access to online banking.

After Marty suffered a mild stroke in early 2022, Matthew and I knew it was time for him to move into a facility that offered tiered care. Just before the move, Marty’s ten-year-old flip phone died. Because so many scammers had his phone number, I added him to my account and changed his number. I’d learned to put all details and all recaps of conversations in an email because Marty couldn’t retain anything I told him. I sent him an email telling him to wait for Matthew to help him activate his new phone. Marty didn’t read my email, however, and he attempted to activate the phone himself. He somehow ended up with two new phone numbers for which I was billed a second and third activation fee.

“Why didn’t you read my email?” I asked when I got the notifications.

“I get too many,” he said.

It would have been the same dog-chasing-its-tail conversation we’d had dozens of times, so I paid the phone company and made sure his latest phone number would be his last.

During the move, Marty fell and cut his hand. At urgent care, Matthew called me and asked about Marty’s insurance. I said it was the same one I’d signed him up for eleven years earlier.

“Well, he has a Humana card in his wallet,” he said.

“When did that happen?”

Matthew didn’t know.

I logged on to Marty’s Medicare account and saw that Humana was, indeed, Marty’s new supplemental insurance. I then went to the Humana website, created an online account, and discovered that Marty had not yet paid any monthly premiums. Why? Because they only sent bills via email and, as you know, he doesn’t check his email. I paid the past-due amount and set up automatic payments to come out of his checking account—a new checking account to which only Matthew and I had access because Marty was paying a colon cleanse company $54.95 a month and sending questionable charities five dollars here and thirty dollars there.

I knew he wouldn’t see it, but I sent Marty an email to let him know I’d set up automatic payments for his insurance premiums, and I added an admonishment for making the insurance switch without telling me. I knew it was in vain, but getting angry in writing made me feel better, if only for a moment. I told Matthew that if Marty didn’t write back within three days, I was taking over his email account.

Marty didn’t respond, and I went in.

His inbox was like walking into an abandoned house filled with cobwebs and musty drapes. I went through each of the 500-plus emails and either reported it as spam, unsubscribed him from the mailing list, or deleted it, including the one from Humana encouraging him to “Switch and save!”

I left unopened the email I’d sent three days earlier. He read it only after I called him to tell him to read it, and I stayed on the phone to make sure he did.

“Oh, so Humana is my new insurance company?” was all he said.

I didn’t answer him with what was screaming in my brain: Why? Why? Why didn’t you choose to get better? You could’ve learned to take care of all of this shit yourself! I was still holding onto a lot of animosity over his decision to discontinue occupational and speech therapy a few months after the seizure. “It’s not helping,” he’d said, even though he was making progress in learning how to live with memory loss. I was still angry that he’d not only resigned himself to memory loss, he drowned in it. In an essay he’d written to friends and coworkers explaining his “condition,” he framed himself as a “victim” who’d gained “wisdom.” He wrote that all the doctors and specialists he’d seen since his seizure had told him to not expect any improvement, and that he’d have to live with the memory loss, concluding that, “For whatever reason, God has permitted these things to happen to me.”

When I accepted the POA job, I saw it more as being a cheerleader, to encourage him to be the independent man he used to be. I didn’t understand—or accept—Marty’s chosen reality, and my refusal was hurting no one but me. My anger was my responsibility and I would have to find a way to deal with it. I finally had to acknowledge that Marty had changed more than I was willing to admit. I still expected him to “snap out of it,” come to his senses, want to improve, remember who he used to be. Remember who he used to be to me. I missed my big brother: the carefree clown, the shirtless guy with the endless tan, the guy who came over on Christmas mornings and played Barbies with my kids. Now, I was more his power of attorney than his sister; the fixer and online fairy that made his problems go away.

But I couldn’t take away all his problems.

After a few months in independent living, the nursing director called to tell me that Marty had stopped in her office with a bag of pills. Even though his medications were delivered individually wrapped, and each little bag contained the pills he was to take in the morning and evening, he had opened them all, dumped them out, and tried to sort them himself.

“He said he was having a hard time remembering what medication he was supposed to take and when,” the nurse said. “By the looks of the contents in this bag, I’d say he’s taken maybe half of his meds this month.”

Matthew and I knew what was next. The staff had explained it to us before Marty moved in. His status would need to change from “independent” to “assisted” living in order for them to take over his medication regimen.

These days, Marty calls both Matthew and I regularly to ask where his checkbook is and if we have his credit card, even though he hasn’t had access to either for three years. I’ve had him write it down and post it on his refrigerator, but he’s forgotten about the note and so he calls and asks and we tell him and he gets bummed for a few moments and then moves on (i.e. he forgets).

But Matthew and I don’t.

Yesterday I called Marty and we ended up talking about Carnation Instant Breakfast. I joked that I could never seem to get the powder to dissolve completely and he told me I have to be patient.

“You have to distract yourself from stirring,” he said seriously. “Watch a show or listen to music and just stir. It will eventually dissolve.”

He had no idea how much I needed that advice.

Whatever more chaos Marty unwittingly creates, I will be here for it, stirring, and remembering an earlier phone call in which he thought I was our sister and started to talk about me. He said he appreciated everything Lynn does for him.

I didn’t tell him I was Lynn. He didn’t need to be reminded about his memory loss. He lives with it every day the best way he can. The least I can do is embrace patience and live with it, too.