My first therapist, Judith, who I met when I was 25, did not have an organic brain disorder for the first fourteen years of our relationship. Then she developed rapid onset dementia. By the time I stopped seeing her three years later, she was unrecognizable.

Thing I tried: Cleaning the house myself

Report: After the extreme cleaner delivered his extreme letdown, I abandoned the idea of hiring a cleaning service and decided to do it myself.

Thing I Tried: Hiring a heavy-duty cleaner who specialized in hoarding situations

Report: I went looking for a heavy-duty cleaner on a site for “adult children of hoarders.” (Ed. note: This oxymoron, “adult child,” is the aptest description of me.)

Thing I Tried: Getting my mother medical attention

Report: The most important item on my agenda was getting my mother back on the medication for her Multiple Sclerosis. She agreed—she really wanted to be less dizzy and more mobile. Yet she stalled at every turn.

Thing I Tried: Reported my mother as an endangered senior citizen to Adult Protective Services of New York, the state agency in charge of ensuring the welfare and safety of elderly and otherwise vulnerable adults.

I could barely understand her fifth husband, a schizophrenic, through his weeping when he called to tell me my mother died. “She fell…the ambulance came…they didn’t use the defibrulator! I kept yelling, use the defibrulator!”

I’m at my desk, writhing and wringing the beanbag wrist rest, waiting for either my mother or H5 or neither of them to call me back.

On October 15, 2009, I took my mother to her local hospital to get her an MRI test. The MRI was ordered by her neurologist to confirm the brain damage from the untreated multiple sclerosis.

The Emergency Medical Technicians who responded to Husband Five’s 911 call would not enter the house without hazmat suits.

1. A song, at age 12, called “I Never See You Anymore.”

I never see you anymore You’re always halfway out the door On the way to your brand-new life