Midnight karma

Before the month was out, Linda took a week off work to research her options. She placed Tommy in the Adult Care Center, an adult day care program located at the Veterans Administration compound in Salem.

The day care hours matched her work hours, and director Sue Nutter assured Linda that Tommy was not a burden to the staff at the center — even when he got mad at what he perceived to be “some dumb-ass sitting in my chair.” (Linda finally suggested they put his name on a chair, which helped some. As for the cursing, she reminded the staff, “They’re just words.”)

It was OK, even, when he grew so agitated that day care workers had to dispatch Linda from work to come quiet him down. (“The minute he sees me, he gets OK.”)Linda Rhodes, already dressed for work, helps her husband wash in the shower before dawn. (Click image to enlarge)

If she put him in a nursing home now, she thought, she’d be there every waking moment when she wasn’t working.

When she wasn’t there, she’d worry: Was he getting the right medications and the right food? Would some stressed-out aide get mad at Tommy when he forgot to pull his pants down before he sat on the toilet?

“My karma’s got to be right at midnight,” she says. With Tommy in a nursing home, she wouldn’t be able to sleep. The drugs he’d be given to quell his agitation would likely put him in a “zombie state,” as a doctor at UVa called it.

In no way would it improve his life. When he’s home, when he has her in sight, he’s happy 90 percent of the time.

“I know that if he ever gets violent or if I have to lift him, I won’t be able to handle him at home,” she says. “But I try not to look forward, and I try not to look back.”

To the outside world, Linda imagines that her life looks like a depressing, made-for-TV movie. She wishes people would believe her when she tells them: It’s not as bad as it looks.

“I understand now why a child who’s been kidnapped doesn’t always escape when given the chance.” Reading about the Stockholm syndrome before, she never understood.

Now, she does. “You really can get used to anything.”

With the right attitude, you can even find moments of joy. They were having a “date night” not long ago, curled up with a blanket on the couch and watching TV.

“I would give you $100 if you would rub my back like you used to,” she said. Tommy didn’t respond.

He started to get agitated, pacing between the den and the kitchen, when Linda pointed out the Lawrence Welk dancers on TV.Tommy gets flustered and covers his ears as his wife, friends and caretakers sing “Happy Birthday” to him at the Adult Care Center. (Click image to enlarge)

“Look, Tommy, they’re dancing the polka!” she said, trying to give him focus.

“Yeah, I bet he’s gonna poke her tonight too,” he quipped.

Linda laughed like she hadn’t laughed in months, maybe years. That was the old Tommy talking, whether he realized it or not — bawdy and quick with the elbow. The same Tommy who thought it’d be a hoot to return from his family farm in Botetourt County with the head of a recently slaughtered pig, which he placed on top of the washing machine — just to get a rise out of her. (“He only did that once.”)

In early December, a geriatrics team at the VA Hospital’s Memory Disorder Clinic gave Tommy another battery of tests — which he failed almost entirely.

They tweaked his medication to see if his behavior at day care might improve.

At the end of the appointment, a doctor asked Tommy if he thought anything was wrong with him.

“No. I feel fine,” he said, agreeably. “There are no problems with me.”

The doctor told Linda: “The best decision this man ever made was to marry you.”

That night she e-mailed her kids about the visit. She wanted them to know that a doctor agreed with how she was managing their father’s care — whether they did or not.