Karla Weller - Diagnosis - Heart Attack

After a while, Gerd was allowed to spend every second weekend at home. When I picked him up early on a Saturday morning, I usually met him in the common room at a neatly set breakfast table. A nurse had poured him some coffee and prepared a bread roll with butter and jelly, but the delicious food laid untouched on his plate while Gerd sat before it in complete despair. He didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know food was placed in front of him, but he knew exactly who he was and that he wanted to go home!

When I gave him a kiss and said hello to him, he answered, “Thank God you’re here!” and immediately started to cry in his misery. To distract him, I said, “You haven’t even touched your breakfast. Aren’t you hungry at all?” “Do I have something to eat?” was his surprised, honest response.

When we arrived home together for the first time after the heart attack, I could hardly believe our luck. I was absolutely convinced Gerd’s memories would simply come back to him now! Certainly, when he was in a familiar environment, he would just have to remember everything. As well as I could, I suppressed the possibility that he might also go into shock as well.

I had parked the car in the driveway and, full of expectations, opened the passenger door so Gerd could exit. He didn’t need any assistance to do so! First, we stood outside the house for a while right where we had all been standing on July 31, 2011 before Gerd and I took Daniela to the airport.

Then we went through the door, carefully climbed the stairs and walked into the kitchen. Now the big moment had finally arrived. Some kind of miracle just had to happen now! Gerd apparently sensed my tension and slowly walked back and forth in the room, moving from the window to the table and back. But nothing happened at all.

“Is this where I live?” he asked monosyllabically, in disbelief. He didn’t know his way around the domicile at all anymore.

First, I tried to convince myself this was due to the fact that we had renovated recently and done a bit of remodeling, too. Maybe he would remember the old kitchen better? But eventually I had to admit that he was simply a stranger to his own life.

Apparently, Gerd also had high expectations of his return home. After all, resuming his former life style continued to be his greatest wish. But the weekend at home didn’t get him any further, or at least, it didn’t get him any closer to his goal. Instead, he seemed discouraged and disappointed even more.

Moreover, the ride back to the clinic on Sunday afternoon grew more depressing every time for several reasons. His time at home hadn’t resulted in the desired breakthrough and we were well aware that Gerd would be more or less on his own again, confronted by other patients who were foreign to him. For instance, when he asked for something to drink, he never knew if he was talking to a nurse or just another patient. So sometimes he received an unfriendly reply or even no response at all to his request which of course made him feel insecure and uncomfortable which in turn resulted in him avoiding contact with his ward mates entirely.

I didn’t notice any significant progress in his development although he had gone to Lake Constance to start reintegrating into normal daily life.

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