Page 22 of An Island Summer
“Of course,” Meghan replied.
“Great. We’ll be in room B5.”
Meghan split ways and headed to Rupert’s room, knocking on the door and then letting herself in. “Good morning,” she said, as she made her way to his bed.
“My love, how are you?” he asked with an adoring smile on his lips.
“I’m doing well. I just stopped in to tell you that I have to run out for a quick second, so our daily chat will be a bit later than usual.”
His face fell.
“But I’m coming right back.”
He brightened. “All right, dear. See you soon.”
With a wave, Meghan let herself out and paced down the brightly lit hallway toward room B5. When she arrived, the blood ran out of her face. Toby was seated at the end of the table along with a group of medical staff, his eyes fixed on her, curiously. The nurse gestured her over to the empty seat next to him.
“Thank you two for coming,” a middle-aged woman with dark hair and glasses said from the other end of the table. “I’m Dr. Angela Hughes, the lead physician for Rupert Meyers’s care.”
Meghan nodded, Toby’s questioning look as to why she was there tugging at her concentration.
Dr. Hughes opened a file on her laptop in front of her and began reading. “Just to recap, Rupert shows symptoms of delusional disorder, a mental illness in which someone cannot tell what is real from what is imagined, as well as emotional dysregulation, due to his inability to control his behavior in times of stress. We believe both are primarily a result of his dementia.” She folded her hands and made eye contact with Toby. “If it were a mild case, we could prescribe a cholinesterase inhibitor which may temporarily improve his symptoms by slowing down the breakdown of acetylcholine when it travels from one cell to another.”
“Can you put that in layman’s terms for us?” Toby asked.
The doctor closed her laptop to address him directly. “Acetylcholine is a chemical we have in our brain that is highly involved in our memory, thought, and judgment. With medication, the acetylcholine, which is in short supply in people with Alzheimer’s disease, isn’t destroyed as quickly.”
The doctor went on to rattle off the dosages of other medications they were giving him for anxiety and depression and their strategies for keeping him calm. Meghan thought about the gentle way the old man looked at her, and she couldn’t imagine how frustrating the disease must be for him.
“We do feel that regular visits by Ms. Gray are proving beneficial for his emotional state, and we’d love to hear your thoughts. Ms. Gray?”
Toby cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, making Meghan’s heart hammer.
“He thinks I’m someone else, but it does seem to quiet him down,” Meghan told the team. “He was disappointed today when I told him I had to step out, but seemed relieved when I said I was coming back.”
Dr. Hughes opened her laptop again and typed quickly while Meghan spoke. “I think the main thing is keeping him calm, and you’re doing that. Obviously, let him lead the conversation, and try not to embellish his fantasies or detract from reality if you can.”
“Okay,” Meghan said.
“And if you ever feel unsafe, there’s a red call button by the light switch in his room,” she added.
“Are you sure that perpetuating this… mistaken identity is a good idea?” Toby asked. “We don’t have any proof that Ms. Gray coming to see him is doing anything at all. He has good days and bad days, and she might be surprised when she encounters him on a day when he’s combative.”
Meghan remembered the old man’s arms around her at the restaurant. “I can feel him relax when I’m around,” she said, finally making eye contact with Toby.
“He can get quite distressed,” Toby told her, calmer than she’d expected.
Dr. Hughes agreed. “He’s never lashed out at a person, but he’s thrown chairs, knocked over bookshelves… He can get very upset.”
Shocked by this, Meghan asked, “Do you know what he was upset about when he did those things?”
Dr. Hughes scrolled on her computer. “Let me see… They’re usually related to his delusions. At one point, he said he was late for his plane to California. We were causing him to miss his flight. Another time, he needed to pick something up for someone.” The doctor took her glasses off and addressed Meghan. “Because you’re a reminder of his fantasies about this Hollywood star, he could get agitated without warning.”
“All right,” Meghan said.
Toby leaned toward her, his proximity and spicy scent giving her stomach a flip, and whispered, “Really, you don’t have to do this.”
“I promised him,” she said under her breath.
