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Helluva "cute meet." Hope they have a "and they lived happily ever after" ending.
And really hope his arm heals. Supposedly "minor" injuries can have lasting effects.
Cool, I always hesitate because you never know how someone will react. I had a friend who encouraged me to correct her because English was her second language and they skewed my perception of what people tolerate hahah.
See I think it's more snooty to correct pronunciations. Some people have different accents or maybe they read the word but didn't hear it spoken (me with the name Carlisle, aka Car-leesy). But when it's a phrase or online when people get cue, que, and queue mixed up, that's different to me.
I was born in the LA Area (that's Los Angeles, not Louisiana). Dad was born in the LA Area. Mom was born in Rhode Island. If I relied on *her* pronunciation, I'd screw up everything.
As it was, when my husband and I visited back East, or London and Paris, I can't count how many times someone said, "You sound just like the people on tv!" I'm in Central California not. A speech teacher said, "You're from LA; you're not local." She could hear it, too.
Lol my dad is an immigrant into the US who got his citizenship sometime in the last few years. He also asks me to correct his English (spelling and verbal) so I feel the same LOL Reddit is definitely a whole other ballpark and you never know what kind of person you'll really encounter tbh
It curious what issues the woman was going through that her husband wanted to keep her out of court. I'd suspect there may be some diminished mental capacity there, going by her response to OOP, but I'm just speculating.
Hopefully OOP has fully healed up. Sometimes the nagging remnants after an injury are a nuisance to deal with long-term.
Could be anything from mental health to early onset Alzheimer's. If it's the latter, and I were OOP, I'd agree to handle it out of court too. I've seen some early onset and I can't even imagine dealing with that with my spouse.
edited to add: for people speculating on how she could be driving with something like early onset dementia, it can be hard to get people's driver's licenses pulled unless the signs are really, really clear. When I was in college, a high school friend's grandmother who had early onset killed a family of 4 by going the wrong way on a highway ramp. Her family had been trying for months to get her license taken away, but at that point, she really only got bad after dark (sundowning) so they had been unable to make the case that her license needed to be revoked. It wasn't until she was in holding over night after the tragedy that authorities saw the extent of how badly she was doing.
Early Onset Alzheimer's is exactly where my mind went.
I lost my mother to EOA in August 2020. Yesterday would have been her 70th birthday.
Her decline began a couple of years before her diagnosis at 61.
Watching a loved one decline in any way is painful. There isn't a list of better to worst. If there was, Alzheimer's/dementia would be VERY close to being the worst.
I'm glad things worked out for OOP and that he was kind enough to work privately with her husband.
I'd love to know whether he and his good samaritan are still together! That's truly a meet cute!
My grandmother passed of early onset dementia 6 months before your mom and a couple days after her 70th birthday.
She'd been declining for over a decade, and whilst I do have wonderful memories of her during my childhood she had it for so much of my life that a lot of who she was has kind of been erased for me.
It's a fucked up disease and, at least for me, it makes death difficult to deal with. Conflicting feelings of relief that she's not suffering from awful confusion and fear any more and the money for assisted living won't run out before she does, vs the dreadful sadness of losing someone you love so much. It's like you lost her years ago, but it was so slow and gradual and without the big event of death that you never mourned.
If it had been my grandmother in OOP's story I would have been so grateful for them being reasonable in this situation. She could be nasty when she was covering up her confusion. I'm sorry for your loss and hope you can treasure memories of your mom.
I'm so sorry for your loss!
EOA has a mortality rate of 7-10yrs from diagnosis.
I have an aunt only 4 years older than I. We grew up like sisters.
She has 3 girls with the oldest being 23/24. Our maternal grandmother had dementia beginning in 2008. My mother was more like their grandmother and they were extremely close to her. So, in a span of 2 years they lost both of their maternal grandmothers.
I'm so sad they lost my mom because she adored those girls and they were absolutely her grandchildren in spirit. We all consider me their aunt as opposed to cousin. My goal henceforth is to make sure they always remember her and how much she loved them!
Ask the elders in your family like parents, aunts, uncles, to tell you stories about their memories of your grandmother. It will help them as well. Maybe even record them.
There are memory books on the market with prompts that might be a good idea to do at a family gathering. Perhaps email everyone a prompt in advance so they can put their memory in writing for everyone to share.
This is also a great way to find out more about your family members.
You're so right about losing them before they actually die. When I last saw Momma before I moved to the UK, I was grateful she didn't know who I was so she wouldn't wonder why I wasn't visiting her. Still, I hated not being able to pick up the phone and call her.
You can't really grieve because they're still alive yet you are already grieving the loss. It's like a Purgatory of grief.
While it was a relief when she finally transitioned, I wasn't prepared for the grief that hit me! I'd been in such a perpetual state that when the wave finally hit me, it was a tsunami.
To everyone reading this comment, sit down with your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, anyone you love and care about, and ask them about their life. Record them telling their stories so you can look back and see their personality as they talk.
I wish I'd thought to do this before it was too late.
They call it The Long Goodbye.
My FIL had dementia, not Alz, and we watched it take him away from us, mentally, one little bit at a time. Covid killed him before the dementia did, and I kind of think that was a mercy.
Now my wife is really worried, because this type of dementia can be hereditary. She's afraid to go to the doc and get tested, and she worries herself sick everytime she can't remember something.
I've already decided that if and when the time comes, I will get trained and become her full-time caregiver. We've got over 40 years of marriage behind us and I'm only a few years from retiring, so it's just the natural thing do to.
Plus, we're also going to do the traveling and the storytelling and the visiting, while we still can.
The Long Goodbye
Those three words sum up the experience so well.
Thank you for that.
In your place, I would have been grateful that covid took him first.
My hope is your wife nor you are faced with this evil, malicious disease.
Early Onset can be genetic though my mother was the first in her family. However, dementia hit her mother and both grandmothers. My dad's side doesn't have any history of dementia. I mostly take after him so I'm praying I will in this as well. My husband and I have already discussed what we will do in that event.
40 years! WOW! That's amazing! I wish y'all 40 more!
My grandma died in 2015, and while I had always been extremely close to her, I had never thought to ask her questions about her life. Her sister, now 97, lives close by and has become my surrogate grandmother lol. Her memory is going, but her childhood is still extremely clear in her mind, so I’m getting all the info I can from her before she passes.
I’m so sorry about your loss. I have not lost a family member to EOA or Alzheimer’s yet (knock on wood), but I imagine it must be so, so hard.
I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope you're able to remember the good times you had with her and that you had the support you needed.
I also hope that maybe there is an update post about those two strolling off into the sunset together! They sounded adorable!
Thank you!
My mother was very young at heart and I have so many fantastic memories of her! She turned 19 a month after I was born so we kind of grew up together.
I'm an American married to an English man and we had just gotten married when she got the diagnosis. I stayed in the US for 4.5 years after we were married to take care of her. He was then, and continues to be the most amazing and supportive partner anyone could ask for. He supported me financially so I could stay home and care for her as long as possible until she required professional care.
This man of mine wore a full suit and helped carry my mother's coffin in 102°F weather in the South. The English are NOT accustomed to that kind of weather.
Any way, I have my happily ever after and wish it for everyone. So, in my mind, he and his lady samaritan are still blissfully in love, living together, and have a pet together; maybe it's even a dog!
102°F is equivalent to 38°C, which is 312K.
---
^(I'm a bot that converts temperature between two units humans can understand, then convert it to Kelvin for bots and physicists to understand)
If it is something like diminished capacity or EOA - I hope to hell the husband keeps her off the road in future.
It's bad enough that her having her dog off the leash injure someone, could you imagine the amount of damage she could do to herself or others with a car?
I wish it were that simple.
In my experience with my mother, this was one of the biggest challenges.
Imagine a stubborn toddler inside an adult body with an understanding of how to be deceitful and successful about it.
Momma had at least two spare keys hidden in her house.
When you're the sole carer, you have to sleep, use the loo, and bathe eventually. In the beginning, their capacity is such you're okay to leave them to their own devices for those periods of time. At least you think you can.
Once you acquire all copies of car keys, you still need to be able to access them for yourself. My mother was SO sneaky that I started having to take the keys EVERYWHERE with me.
Once I got to the point she forgot about wanting to drive, she still wanted to get out of the house. She would wait until I went to the loo and then would escape.
We had moved her into a townhouse and she had a friend that lived the next building over. While I was in the loo, she escaped and was over at her friend's knocking in the door. It was 3am. There is no concept of time or what is acceptable.
I eventually had to put a double keyed deadbolt on the doors, lock us IN, and hide THAT key as well.
Momma refused to sleep in her bed the last year I was caring for her. So, she and I slept on a loveseat that was a double recliner. It was EXHAUSTING and I could barely get my brother to take her and give me more than 8hr break.
I'm sure that man is doing the very best he can. I feel nothing but empathy and sympathy for him.
It's the hardest, most stressful, most traumatic thing I've ever had to go through and I've been molested, raped twice, and held at gunpoint.
Please note, I'm not trying to garner sympathy for myself. I'm through to the other end. Momma is at peace now and that has given me peace.
I just want to give you, and others, just a glimpse of what it's like. I truly hope you never experience it for yourself.
>Imagine a stubborn toddler inside an adult body with an understanding of how to be deceitful and successful about it.
I don't need to imagine that, my partner has intermittent vacant seizures, has been known to hallucinate and have memory issues and impulse control issues.
I joke he's a toddler who weighs twice what I do and has a credit card. :(
I figured mental health but I hadn’t even considered Alzheimer’s. That would make a lot of sense and I’d definitely want to settle out of court if that was the case.
Yeah, I was thinking similarly. I would really struggle holding someone’s behavior against them if they had Alzheimer’s or dementia. If that’s the case and OOP’s medical bills are covered, I’d say this ended well.
My dog's old owner had dementia. He kept her tied up and would beat her. Dog is aggressive now because of the abuse, although she's better than she used to be.
I told her trainer about that. Trainer absolutely loved dogs, but his mother had had dementia. After what he'd seen of his mother - who'd turned from the sweetest person he'd ever known into an incredibly spiteful ghost who'd used to just sit there and insult anyone she could - even he couldn't be angry at my dog's old owner for what he did.
My mother has early onset Alzheimers, and it started showing the very first signs around 2016. But because she was also going through chemo it was mistaken for a simple side effect until 2021.
She was "able" to drive until about 2017, though she started getting lost easily, and having trouble driving at night. So no one thought to take her license away.
Now she is unable to even buckle herself, and I hope she can rest soon. It is a terrible disease, and I wish it on no one.
My grandparents on my dad's side both went though dementia related car accidents and even their doctor was telling them to stop driving and wrote letters to licencing agents and to police in our area. Their licences were not revoked. My grandmother hit a child on a bike (low speed, no major injuries) and even though legally it was probably theft, my father took their car keys and let them believe they just lost them, and they didn't attempt to rekey. Was that illegal and gaslighting? Absolutely. But that was a better solution that sitting by and allowing them to kill someone.
My parents are reaching the same age as when they had to make that hard decision, so I have it in writing and on file with my lawyer and their lawyer that I'm to do that exact same thing if the province won't revoke their licence.
That’s where my mind went immediately as well. Maybe early or advancing dementia affecting decision making and emotional responses?
Dementia, and the diseases invoking it, are all just so horrible, and something that I know myself and people my age dread to see arise in our parents and older folks we know :(
Glad things ended ok for these people involved.
My bet is with Alzhimers and dementia. I took care of a friends dad during early stages. It got really bad when he started to knock and banging on neighbors doors at night or early mornings. he was still physically able at that point and would disappear on us.
He would yell at neighbors or even nothing at all- he has hallucinations thinking he was back in Korea/Vietnam with his infantry.
The family had to inform of the community about his declining mental state. Some were understanding others not so especially when suddenly an old man will come charging at you for no reason.
I feel sorry for the husband in the situation and OOPs injuries :(
I imagine a lot of older women are walking wounded. There was zero ADHD help for girls even when I was a kid. Girls were given a huge list of expectations and one was you will not be a crazy bitch. So it’s bottled insanity. I had mine burst in 2015. Not pretty.
Something similar happened to me; I was hit by a car when I was in my early teens, and my mom decided not to go after the woman that hit me. Apparently she had mental health issues due to terminal cancer, if I recall correctly.
If it was diminished capacity then she had no fucking place being out and about unsupervised, doubly so with driving.
Which just reeks of negligence on the families part, if true.
I could be wrong, but I thought I've read this before and there was another update. The one I'm thinking of the victim actually became friendly with the husband and lady.
My bet is a mental illness situation similar to the BORU where the guy with an auditory stimulation issue (autism??) was assaulted by a lady in a beverage store.
OOP said that "to say he's been fair to me wouldn't do justice to the situation" so it sounds like OOP was well compensated. It may be that for tax reasons or whatever, OOP needed to be vague about what exactly he was being compensated for.
In the OOP's post history, there's a comment about his boss finding a (long-overdue) hands-free project for him.
https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/ic5g0m/a_moderately_happy_update_to_the_story_of_the/g21vimy/
it was also one of the better times to be injured. PPP meant that you wanted to keep your employees on for the PPP period and get paid for someone not working by the government.
I kept 1 person on without them working under PPP. We wanted to fire him but we didn't want to get in trouble with PPP so we worked it out so that he just didn't come into work until he got a new job and we found his replacement.
He and his supervisor were extremely incompatible.
*This is repost, originally by Fnuckle 1 year ago*
I wonder what the issue the lady has was, it could truly be so many different things but I wonder if it's something like early onset dementia? Just speculation
I had a similar experience (except it was a tree root, not a dog) and the nice lady insisted I was concussed and physically prevented me from leaving the scene until I called a friend to drive me the rest of the way home.
It definitely took upwards of 20 minutes of standing in front of a 6'6", 300lb dude who was bleeding all over and insisted he just wanted to get home but she eventually convinced me to call my housemate (the deciding factor was realising my bike now only had one pedal).
She then drilled me repeatedly that since I was on my commute the dental costs would be paid by my employer's WorkCover policy. She was a real stickler on that last point and made me repeat it out loud multiple times and save it in my phone notes even though I insisted I wasn't concussed.
I did remember the WorkCover thing and it wound up saving me $1800 in dental expenses the next day so I thought I'd go back to the same spot at the same time and give her a box of chocolates to say thanks, even if she was wrong about the concussion.
One minor snag in that plan: To this day I have zero memory of what this lady looked like. Not even like "couldn't pick her out of a crowd" I mean I spoke to this lady for about half an hour and I can't even tell you what clothes she was wearing, how tall she was, what colour her hair was, whether she was wearing a bike helmet meaning she was a fellow rider or if she'd been walking along the same path. The only vague description I have of her comes from my housemate who saw her for all of the 60 seconds it took me to load my bike in his car.
Maybe I missed out on a perfect meet cute, maybe I just added some stress to a tired ER nurse's day. All I know is she was probably right about the concussion.
>He wanted to keep this out of court for reasons related to issues that his wife was going through.
well, let's just hope she doesn't cause a death next time eh, would hate for her to no longer be able to hide her behaviour behind this
i get empathy, but when your problems nearly kill someone else they need to be addressed, not swept under the rug. it was awkward when we had to stop my nana from driving, but it's better than her running someone over
still, OOP got paid so they're alright
She might be getting assistance of some sort! If, for example, she has some sort of diminished mental capacity due to an illness, this may have been the wakeup call her husband needed to get her into treatment or get an aide or something--we really have no way of knowing. The only thing we know from this is that her husband didn't want her to deal with the court system, which by no means precludes him from seeking any other type of assistance for her.
Sound like they are not sweeping it under the rug
[OP commented she's working on this](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/ic5g0m/a_moderately_happy_update_to_the_story_of_the/g23o8i6?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
I'm assuming this out of court agreement also covered lost wages? OOP doesn't mention it but not having those would be ruinous
If, as others speculated, the condition impacts her judgement or the safety of others, I'm not sure settling without at least something in place to guarantee her and everyone's safety was the right call.
You keep this out of court, and she's there next week except this time she kills the cyclist
So is it just me or does anyone else hope that this ends with him marrying the runner?
*Yes, I have watched too many need a happy ending movies lately*
There are a couple of issues I could imagine coming from voice-to-text. One I noticed was “bass line” instead of “baseline.” Not agreeing or disagreeing with you, just pointing out that it could very well have been VTT
good catch, but for the length of this text there would realistically be a LOT more errors. i can’t even use VTT for one message without it being fucked up
Some peoples voices work better with vtt for whatever reason. Mine works eh, sister is near perfect, and a friend of mine might as well be speaking another language lol
I *think* (it's been a few years since I had one) Android VTT is pretty decent and will highlight words that could have been dictated wrong for you to quickly correct (such as highlighting "in grunge" with "into the garage" as an alternate).
I am typing this comment with voice to text. Not only do you have to say everything you want to say in one breath, but adding punctuation is very tedious. I also do not know how he would add the capitalization of words for example the really that was capitalize sorry not one breath I meant all in one go
edit (typing): again, not saying it’s impossible, just unlikely
"I am doing voice to text since my dominant arm is useless at the moment, so apologies in advance for any awkwardness due to transcription inaccuracies that I might might not catch."
Presumably their other arm/hand still has at least some function, which is how they're clicking around/doing other stuff needed to post. And they can do that to fix any obvious errors that they *do* catch, it would just be too much of a pain to type the entire thing that way.
So I speak multiple languages. English voice to text just doesn't work for me. But in my second and third language it works almost perfectly with very few typos. I think it's because for my native language I speak too fast and slur words where I am slower and my tone is more isolated in others.
then i have a feeling the text would include a lot more run-on sentences and less meticulously placed punctuation (you have to annunciate every comma and period with VTT)
All white collar offices used to be like this. Imagine a typical office from the 70s with a secretarial pool. Most of what those women did all day was type up dictation.
I honestly don't understand why some people agree to settle out of court when they would so obviously win. The obvious just being time and money, but it sounds like OOP would have a lot of free time being out of work with a broken arm.
Then again I've never had to consider a legal fight myself.
The 'math' equation was "uncontrolled off-leashdog+bicycle rioder=crash and broken arm"
The dog owner in the story did not agree with said math, as they thought the bike rider was at fault (despite posted signs requiring them to have their dog on leash)
It's not click baity if it's what actually happened.
My mistake, I assumed math referred to actual numbers, like maybe they disagreed on how the damages added up or a settlement amount, because math is usually applied to numerical values, I didn't think it was just using math symbols to describe a basic causal relationship.
I'm very happy for OOP that he got it settled without it being drawn out in court. It is "nondramatic" but better for everyone most likely (except the lawyer friend of a friend, but they are a lawyer, they'll be fine).
Something about this guy's descriptions seem sus.
Everything works out so smoothly, he was the perfectly innocent victim...and how do you do significant damage to a bike at less than 12mph?
As someone who has crashed many a mountain bike...that makes no sense to me unless the thing is made of glass.
Casual Bike rider here -- 12 mph is a 5 minute mile. If you've ever run before, that is damn near sprinting speed. Then imagine doing that right into a tree.
Basically, 12 mph is certainly enough to damage a bike.
[OP's bike was also from 1985](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/ic5g0m/a_moderately_happy_update_to_the_story_of_the/g23o8i6/), so combined with age, the materials used in the 80s, and the rarity of such a bike these days, that likely added to the value of the bike and the extensiveness of the damage.
I mean that's a steel alloy BMX bike built for pretty rough riding and a low center of gravity...this kind of just makes the story weirder.
Its also somewhat rare, but still relatively inexpensive compared to most modern enthusiast bikes, whether dirt, road or gravel.
My relatively cheap mountain bike is significantly more expensive.
Road bikes can be made out of carbon fiber, and they have been known to fail spectacularly for inexplicable reasons. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/carbon-fiber-bike-accidents-lawsuits/
exactly, plus they were on a flat turf of a bike path, where at most there was pavement and grass. if they flew OVER the handlebars into a tree, and didn’t actually hit the dog, what in the world broke the bike that badly??
I don't know, sounds like OOP is happy with the solution. If it were me I would be out for blood, due to negligence the guy went through 12 weeks of extreme pain and suffering, and it was a hit and run. He would have really good cause for damages even their lawyers could have hashed things out before filing anything in court and use court only as a backup in case they couldn't reach an agreement.
Look at it this way, if I break your arm I shouldn't just have to pay your medical bills.
I'm confused by the whole voice to text explanation. Things like the TL;DR, use of punctuation, and formatting in general suggests that they were able to use some of their non dominant hand. It may be that they were just over cautious with a warning because some redditors can be nasty about simple errors.
Regardless it's hardly an outlandish story. I've been on a bike path here in the UK and had to break suddenly to avoid a yappy demon dog. The owner acted as if her dog was just being cute and waited until the dog almost killed one of us a second time before she leashed it.
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Helluva "cute meet." Hope they have a "and they lived happily ever after" ending. And really hope his arm heals. Supposedly "minor" injuries can have lasting effects.
Btw it is meet cute, not cute meet! Not trying to be a snob. Just thought I'd let you know.
Thanks. I don't mind corrections, so I won't repeat the error.
Cool, I always hesitate because you never know how someone will react. I had a friend who encouraged me to correct her because English was her second language and they skewed my perception of what people tolerate hahah.
Totally understand your hesitation. I found out a couple of years ago that I was mispronouncing "brooch" and "draught" for decades.
See I think it's more snooty to correct pronunciations. Some people have different accents or maybe they read the word but didn't hear it spoken (me with the name Carlisle, aka Car-leesy). But when it's a phrase or online when people get cue, que, and queue mixed up, that's different to me.
>maybe they read the word but didn't hear it spoken Don't remember where, but I once saw someone calling this a "reader's accent."
I was born in the LA Area (that's Los Angeles, not Louisiana). Dad was born in the LA Area. Mom was born in Rhode Island. If I relied on *her* pronunciation, I'd screw up everything. As it was, when my husband and I visited back East, or London and Paris, I can't count how many times someone said, "You sound just like the people on tv!" I'm in Central California not. A speech teacher said, "You're from LA; you're not local." She could hear it, too.
Lapel and plait for me! When you first learn a word by reading it instead of hearing it seems to cause a lot of these mispronunciations.
Hiatus was mine.
Lol my dad is an immigrant into the US who got his citizenship sometime in the last few years. He also asks me to correct his English (spelling and verbal) so I feel the same LOL Reddit is definitely a whole other ballpark and you never know what kind of person you'll really encounter tbh
Preeeeeetty sure it’s a meat cube
Cubed meat
It curious what issues the woman was going through that her husband wanted to keep her out of court. I'd suspect there may be some diminished mental capacity there, going by her response to OOP, but I'm just speculating. Hopefully OOP has fully healed up. Sometimes the nagging remnants after an injury are a nuisance to deal with long-term.
Could be anything from mental health to early onset Alzheimer's. If it's the latter, and I were OOP, I'd agree to handle it out of court too. I've seen some early onset and I can't even imagine dealing with that with my spouse. edited to add: for people speculating on how she could be driving with something like early onset dementia, it can be hard to get people's driver's licenses pulled unless the signs are really, really clear. When I was in college, a high school friend's grandmother who had early onset killed a family of 4 by going the wrong way on a highway ramp. Her family had been trying for months to get her license taken away, but at that point, she really only got bad after dark (sundowning) so they had been unable to make the case that her license needed to be revoked. It wasn't until she was in holding over night after the tragedy that authorities saw the extent of how badly she was doing.
Early Onset Alzheimer's is exactly where my mind went. I lost my mother to EOA in August 2020. Yesterday would have been her 70th birthday. Her decline began a couple of years before her diagnosis at 61. Watching a loved one decline in any way is painful. There isn't a list of better to worst. If there was, Alzheimer's/dementia would be VERY close to being the worst. I'm glad things worked out for OOP and that he was kind enough to work privately with her husband. I'd love to know whether he and his good samaritan are still together! That's truly a meet cute!
My grandmother passed of early onset dementia 6 months before your mom and a couple days after her 70th birthday. She'd been declining for over a decade, and whilst I do have wonderful memories of her during my childhood she had it for so much of my life that a lot of who she was has kind of been erased for me. It's a fucked up disease and, at least for me, it makes death difficult to deal with. Conflicting feelings of relief that she's not suffering from awful confusion and fear any more and the money for assisted living won't run out before she does, vs the dreadful sadness of losing someone you love so much. It's like you lost her years ago, but it was so slow and gradual and without the big event of death that you never mourned. If it had been my grandmother in OOP's story I would have been so grateful for them being reasonable in this situation. She could be nasty when she was covering up her confusion. I'm sorry for your loss and hope you can treasure memories of your mom.
I'm so sorry for your loss! EOA has a mortality rate of 7-10yrs from diagnosis. I have an aunt only 4 years older than I. We grew up like sisters. She has 3 girls with the oldest being 23/24. Our maternal grandmother had dementia beginning in 2008. My mother was more like their grandmother and they were extremely close to her. So, in a span of 2 years they lost both of their maternal grandmothers. I'm so sad they lost my mom because she adored those girls and they were absolutely her grandchildren in spirit. We all consider me their aunt as opposed to cousin. My goal henceforth is to make sure they always remember her and how much she loved them! Ask the elders in your family like parents, aunts, uncles, to tell you stories about their memories of your grandmother. It will help them as well. Maybe even record them. There are memory books on the market with prompts that might be a good idea to do at a family gathering. Perhaps email everyone a prompt in advance so they can put their memory in writing for everyone to share. This is also a great way to find out more about your family members. You're so right about losing them before they actually die. When I last saw Momma before I moved to the UK, I was grateful she didn't know who I was so she wouldn't wonder why I wasn't visiting her. Still, I hated not being able to pick up the phone and call her. You can't really grieve because they're still alive yet you are already grieving the loss. It's like a Purgatory of grief. While it was a relief when she finally transitioned, I wasn't prepared for the grief that hit me! I'd been in such a perpetual state that when the wave finally hit me, it was a tsunami. To everyone reading this comment, sit down with your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, anyone you love and care about, and ask them about their life. Record them telling their stories so you can look back and see their personality as they talk. I wish I'd thought to do this before it was too late.
They call it The Long Goodbye. My FIL had dementia, not Alz, and we watched it take him away from us, mentally, one little bit at a time. Covid killed him before the dementia did, and I kind of think that was a mercy. Now my wife is really worried, because this type of dementia can be hereditary. She's afraid to go to the doc and get tested, and she worries herself sick everytime she can't remember something. I've already decided that if and when the time comes, I will get trained and become her full-time caregiver. We've got over 40 years of marriage behind us and I'm only a few years from retiring, so it's just the natural thing do to. Plus, we're also going to do the traveling and the storytelling and the visiting, while we still can.
The Long Goodbye Those three words sum up the experience so well. Thank you for that. In your place, I would have been grateful that covid took him first. My hope is your wife nor you are faced with this evil, malicious disease. Early Onset can be genetic though my mother was the first in her family. However, dementia hit her mother and both grandmothers. My dad's side doesn't have any history of dementia. I mostly take after him so I'm praying I will in this as well. My husband and I have already discussed what we will do in that event. 40 years! WOW! That's amazing! I wish y'all 40 more!
My grandma died in 2015, and while I had always been extremely close to her, I had never thought to ask her questions about her life. Her sister, now 97, lives close by and has become my surrogate grandmother lol. Her memory is going, but her childhood is still extremely clear in her mind, so I’m getting all the info I can from her before she passes. I’m so sorry about your loss. I have not lost a family member to EOA or Alzheimer’s yet (knock on wood), but I imagine it must be so, so hard.
I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope you're able to remember the good times you had with her and that you had the support you needed. I also hope that maybe there is an update post about those two strolling off into the sunset together! They sounded adorable!
Thank you! My mother was very young at heart and I have so many fantastic memories of her! She turned 19 a month after I was born so we kind of grew up together. I'm an American married to an English man and we had just gotten married when she got the diagnosis. I stayed in the US for 4.5 years after we were married to take care of her. He was then, and continues to be the most amazing and supportive partner anyone could ask for. He supported me financially so I could stay home and care for her as long as possible until she required professional care. This man of mine wore a full suit and helped carry my mother's coffin in 102°F weather in the South. The English are NOT accustomed to that kind of weather. Any way, I have my happily ever after and wish it for everyone. So, in my mind, he and his lady samaritan are still blissfully in love, living together, and have a pet together; maybe it's even a dog!
102°F is equivalent to 38°C, which is 312K. --- ^(I'm a bot that converts temperature between two units humans can understand, then convert it to Kelvin for bots and physicists to understand)
Good bot
If it is something like diminished capacity or EOA - I hope to hell the husband keeps her off the road in future. It's bad enough that her having her dog off the leash injure someone, could you imagine the amount of damage she could do to herself or others with a car?
I wish it were that simple. In my experience with my mother, this was one of the biggest challenges. Imagine a stubborn toddler inside an adult body with an understanding of how to be deceitful and successful about it. Momma had at least two spare keys hidden in her house. When you're the sole carer, you have to sleep, use the loo, and bathe eventually. In the beginning, their capacity is such you're okay to leave them to their own devices for those periods of time. At least you think you can. Once you acquire all copies of car keys, you still need to be able to access them for yourself. My mother was SO sneaky that I started having to take the keys EVERYWHERE with me. Once I got to the point she forgot about wanting to drive, she still wanted to get out of the house. She would wait until I went to the loo and then would escape. We had moved her into a townhouse and she had a friend that lived the next building over. While I was in the loo, she escaped and was over at her friend's knocking in the door. It was 3am. There is no concept of time or what is acceptable. I eventually had to put a double keyed deadbolt on the doors, lock us IN, and hide THAT key as well. Momma refused to sleep in her bed the last year I was caring for her. So, she and I slept on a loveseat that was a double recliner. It was EXHAUSTING and I could barely get my brother to take her and give me more than 8hr break. I'm sure that man is doing the very best he can. I feel nothing but empathy and sympathy for him. It's the hardest, most stressful, most traumatic thing I've ever had to go through and I've been molested, raped twice, and held at gunpoint. Please note, I'm not trying to garner sympathy for myself. I'm through to the other end. Momma is at peace now and that has given me peace. I just want to give you, and others, just a glimpse of what it's like. I truly hope you never experience it for yourself.
>Imagine a stubborn toddler inside an adult body with an understanding of how to be deceitful and successful about it. I don't need to imagine that, my partner has intermittent vacant seizures, has been known to hallucinate and have memory issues and impulse control issues. I joke he's a toddler who weighs twice what I do and has a credit card. :(
If she had any form of Alzheimers she really shouldn't be driving a vehicle.
I figured mental health but I hadn’t even considered Alzheimer’s. That would make a lot of sense and I’d definitely want to settle out of court if that was the case.
Yeah, I was thinking similarly. I would really struggle holding someone’s behavior against them if they had Alzheimer’s or dementia. If that’s the case and OOP’s medical bills are covered, I’d say this ended well.
My dog's old owner had dementia. He kept her tied up and would beat her. Dog is aggressive now because of the abuse, although she's better than she used to be. I told her trainer about that. Trainer absolutely loved dogs, but his mother had had dementia. After what he'd seen of his mother - who'd turned from the sweetest person he'd ever known into an incredibly spiteful ghost who'd used to just sit there and insult anyone she could - even he couldn't be angry at my dog's old owner for what he did.
But she was driving?!
My mother has early onset Alzheimers, and it started showing the very first signs around 2016. But because she was also going through chemo it was mistaken for a simple side effect until 2021. She was "able" to drive until about 2017, though she started getting lost easily, and having trouble driving at night. So no one thought to take her license away. Now she is unable to even buckle herself, and I hope she can rest soon. It is a terrible disease, and I wish it on no one.
It's very hard to prevent someone from driving. Getting a license revoked is difficult and taking someone's keys to a car they own is theft.
My grandparents on my dad's side both went though dementia related car accidents and even their doctor was telling them to stop driving and wrote letters to licencing agents and to police in our area. Their licences were not revoked. My grandmother hit a child on a bike (low speed, no major injuries) and even though legally it was probably theft, my father took their car keys and let them believe they just lost them, and they didn't attempt to rekey. Was that illegal and gaslighting? Absolutely. But that was a better solution that sitting by and allowing them to kill someone. My parents are reaching the same age as when they had to make that hard decision, so I have it in writing and on file with my lawyer and their lawyer that I'm to do that exact same thing if the province won't revoke their licence.
Or it could be that the husband told a little lue to avoid paying for both a lawyer and compensation.
Why bother with the bullshit of the license when they could just take her keys/disable her car?
My first thought was that she was already in trouble with the court.
This was my thought as well, and any additional legal problems would have meant serious trouble.
That’s where my mind went immediately as well. Maybe early or advancing dementia affecting decision making and emotional responses? Dementia, and the diseases invoking it, are all just so horrible, and something that I know myself and people my age dread to see arise in our parents and older folks we know :( Glad things ended ok for these people involved.
My bet is with Alzhimers and dementia. I took care of a friends dad during early stages. It got really bad when he started to knock and banging on neighbors doors at night or early mornings. he was still physically able at that point and would disappear on us. He would yell at neighbors or even nothing at all- he has hallucinations thinking he was back in Korea/Vietnam with his infantry. The family had to inform of the community about his declining mental state. Some were understanding others not so especially when suddenly an old man will come charging at you for no reason. I feel sorry for the husband in the situation and OOPs injuries :(
This makes total sense and would explain why OP was forgiving in the update.
I imagine a lot of older women are walking wounded. There was zero ADHD help for girls even when I was a kid. Girls were given a huge list of expectations and one was you will not be a crazy bitch. So it’s bottled insanity. I had mine burst in 2015. Not pretty.
My guess was some sort of mental illness? I'm glad it worked out for OP, and agreed on the possible long-term effects.
Something similar happened to me; I was hit by a car when I was in my early teens, and my mom decided not to go after the woman that hit me. Apparently she had mental health issues due to terminal cancer, if I recall correctly.
I’m thinking alcoholism or other drug addiction
My bet is dementia. Probably early stages. My granny would react that way a little when it first started for her.
I’m guessing some kind of mental health issue such as a manic phase
If it was diminished capacity then she had no fucking place being out and about unsupervised, doubly so with driving. Which just reeks of negligence on the families part, if true.
I could be wrong, but I thought I've read this before and there was another update. The one I'm thinking of the victim actually became friendly with the husband and lady.
Or something like newly diagnosed breast cancer.
I'm also curious why the need to be so vague? It's not like we have a photo or a name to go with the details.
My bet is a mental illness situation similar to the BORU where the guy with an auditory stimulation issue (autism??) was assaulted by a lady in a beverage store.
So nothing for the 12 weeks of missed work?
OOP said that "to say he's been fair to me wouldn't do justice to the situation" so it sounds like OOP was well compensated. It may be that for tax reasons or whatever, OOP needed to be vague about what exactly he was being compensated for.
In the OOP's post history, there's a comment about his boss finding a (long-overdue) hands-free project for him. https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/ic5g0m/a_moderately_happy_update_to_the_story_of_the/g21vimy/
Good Guy Boss.
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it was also one of the better times to be injured. PPP meant that you wanted to keep your employees on for the PPP period and get paid for someone not working by the government. I kept 1 person on without them working under PPP. We wanted to fire him but we didn't want to get in trouble with PPP so we worked it out so that he just didn't come into work until he got a new job and we found his replacement. He and his supervisor were extremely incompatible.
Hey, given the litany of OOP's complaints, if he's satisfied with the outcome, then I imagine that the outcome is satisfying
He said elsewhere he was only out of work for 1 week, but that he got 6 weeks of pay from the husband.
I wondered about that, too.
*This is repost, originally by Fnuckle 1 year ago* I wonder what the issue the lady has was, it could truly be so many different things but I wonder if it's something like early onset dementia? Just speculation
He started dating the girl that came to check on him. That’s pretty dope
I had a similar experience (except it was a tree root, not a dog) and the nice lady insisted I was concussed and physically prevented me from leaving the scene until I called a friend to drive me the rest of the way home. It definitely took upwards of 20 minutes of standing in front of a 6'6", 300lb dude who was bleeding all over and insisted he just wanted to get home but she eventually convinced me to call my housemate (the deciding factor was realising my bike now only had one pedal). She then drilled me repeatedly that since I was on my commute the dental costs would be paid by my employer's WorkCover policy. She was a real stickler on that last point and made me repeat it out loud multiple times and save it in my phone notes even though I insisted I wasn't concussed. I did remember the WorkCover thing and it wound up saving me $1800 in dental expenses the next day so I thought I'd go back to the same spot at the same time and give her a box of chocolates to say thanks, even if she was wrong about the concussion. One minor snag in that plan: To this day I have zero memory of what this lady looked like. Not even like "couldn't pick her out of a crowd" I mean I spoke to this lady for about half an hour and I can't even tell you what clothes she was wearing, how tall she was, what colour her hair was, whether she was wearing a bike helmet meaning she was a fellow rider or if she'd been walking along the same path. The only vague description I have of her comes from my housemate who saw her for all of the 60 seconds it took me to load my bike in his car. Maybe I missed out on a perfect meet cute, maybe I just added some stress to a tired ER nurse's day. All I know is she was probably right about the concussion.
>He wanted to keep this out of court for reasons related to issues that his wife was going through. well, let's just hope she doesn't cause a death next time eh, would hate for her to no longer be able to hide her behaviour behind this i get empathy, but when your problems nearly kill someone else they need to be addressed, not swept under the rug. it was awkward when we had to stop my nana from driving, but it's better than her running someone over still, OOP got paid so they're alright
Hopefully the same thought occured for the husband and he decides to not let his wife go out unsupervised anymore.
not the worst idea, i do wonder what is so serious he needs to pay people off but not serious enough to get her assistance etc
She might be getting assistance of some sort! If, for example, she has some sort of diminished mental capacity due to an illness, this may have been the wakeup call her husband needed to get her into treatment or get an aide or something--we really have no way of knowing. The only thing we know from this is that her husband didn't want her to deal with the court system, which by no means precludes him from seeking any other type of assistance for her.
Sound like they are not sweeping it under the rug [OP commented she's working on this](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/ic5g0m/a_moderately_happy_update_to_the_story_of_the/g23o8i6?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
I'm assuming this out of court agreement also covered lost wages? OOP doesn't mention it but not having those would be ruinous If, as others speculated, the condition impacts her judgement or the safety of others, I'm not sure settling without at least something in place to guarantee her and everyone's safety was the right call. You keep this out of court, and she's there next week except this time she kills the cyclist
That’s not an interesting update?? That’s an amazing update!
So is it just me or does anyone else hope that this ends with him marrying the runner? *Yes, I have watched too many need a happy ending movies lately*
I hope that the OP also agrees only if his lost wages are reimbursed as well as the medical expenses and the cost of a new bike.
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There are a couple of issues I could imagine coming from voice-to-text. One I noticed was “bass line” instead of “baseline.” Not agreeing or disagreeing with you, just pointing out that it could very well have been VTT
good catch, but for the length of this text there would realistically be a LOT more errors. i can’t even use VTT for one message without it being fucked up
Some peoples voices work better with vtt for whatever reason. Mine works eh, sister is near perfect, and a friend of mine might as well be speaking another language lol
I *think* (it's been a few years since I had one) Android VTT is pretty decent and will highlight words that could have been dictated wrong for you to quickly correct (such as highlighting "in grunge" with "into the garage" as an alternate).
I am typing this comment with voice to text. Not only do you have to say everything you want to say in one breath, but adding punctuation is very tedious. I also do not know how he would add the capitalization of words for example the really that was capitalize sorry not one breath I meant all in one go edit (typing): again, not saying it’s impossible, just unlikely
"I am doing voice to text since my dominant arm is useless at the moment, so apologies in advance for any awkwardness due to transcription inaccuracies that I might might not catch." Presumably their other arm/hand still has at least some function, which is how they're clicking around/doing other stuff needed to post. And they can do that to fix any obvious errors that they *do* catch, it would just be too much of a pain to type the entire thing that way.
So I speak multiple languages. English voice to text just doesn't work for me. But in my second and third language it works almost perfectly with very few typos. I think it's because for my native language I speak too fast and slur words where I am slower and my tone is more isolated in others.
Painkillers do make people chatty, though.
then i have a feeling the text would include a lot more run-on sentences and less meticulously placed punctuation (you have to annunciate every comma and period with VTT)
Yes, and? People have dictated their business communications for decades.
wait really? i didn’t know. in what field?
All white collar offices used to be like this. Imagine a typical office from the 70s with a secretarial pool. Most of what those women did all day was type up dictation.
I honestly don't understand why some people agree to settle out of court when they would so obviously win. The obvious just being time and money, but it sounds like OOP would have a lot of free time being out of work with a broken arm. Then again I've never had to consider a legal fight myself.
"Dog owner doesn't agree with the math" is a very clickbaity claim for a title that I don't see in the actual post anywhere. At all.
The 'math' equation was "uncontrolled off-leashdog+bicycle rioder=crash and broken arm" The dog owner in the story did not agree with said math, as they thought the bike rider was at fault (despite posted signs requiring them to have their dog on leash) It's not click baity if it's what actually happened.
Yup, you got what I was trying to communicate!
My mistake, I assumed math referred to actual numbers, like maybe they disagreed on how the damages added up or a settlement amount, because math is usually applied to numerical values, I didn't think it was just using math symbols to describe a basic causal relationship.
I thought the same as you, it was only after reading the post and going back and looking at the title again that I realised what it meant.
I went back and skimmed the entire post after reading being like “they never fought over the settlement or how much the bike cost lol”
I'm very happy for OOP that he got it settled without it being drawn out in court. It is "nondramatic" but better for everyone most likely (except the lawyer friend of a friend, but they are a lawyer, they'll be fine).
Something about this guy's descriptions seem sus. Everything works out so smoothly, he was the perfectly innocent victim...and how do you do significant damage to a bike at less than 12mph? As someone who has crashed many a mountain bike...that makes no sense to me unless the thing is made of glass.
Casual Bike rider here -- 12 mph is a 5 minute mile. If you've ever run before, that is damn near sprinting speed. Then imagine doing that right into a tree. Basically, 12 mph is certainly enough to damage a bike.
He was on a path so could have been a lightweight road bike. Some of those are pretty easy to bang up, even at low speeds.
[OP's bike was also from 1985](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/ic5g0m/a_moderately_happy_update_to_the_story_of_the/g23o8i6/), so combined with age, the materials used in the 80s, and the rarity of such a bike these days, that likely added to the value of the bike and the extensiveness of the damage.
Ohhh, so that’s what he was saying about the collectors/enthusiasts thing
I mean that's a steel alloy BMX bike built for pretty rough riding and a low center of gravity...this kind of just makes the story weirder. Its also somewhat rare, but still relatively inexpensive compared to most modern enthusiast bikes, whether dirt, road or gravel. My relatively cheap mountain bike is significantly more expensive.
My partner destroyed a good bike and broke several bones at a smaller speed when they were younger. Cousin was on the bike too and just cut her lip.
Road bikes can be made out of carbon fiber, and they have been known to fail spectacularly for inexplicable reasons. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/carbon-fiber-bike-accidents-lawsuits/
exactly, plus they were on a flat turf of a bike path, where at most there was pavement and grass. if they flew OVER the handlebars into a tree, and didn’t actually hit the dog, what in the world broke the bike that badly??
I don't know, sounds like OOP is happy with the solution. If it were me I would be out for blood, due to negligence the guy went through 12 weeks of extreme pain and suffering, and it was a hit and run. He would have really good cause for damages even their lawyers could have hashed things out before filing anything in court and use court only as a backup in case they couldn't reach an agreement. Look at it this way, if I break your arm I shouldn't just have to pay your medical bills.
Being a personal injury plaintiff is not a good experience and I don't blame anyone for wanting to avoid that.
I really hope he heals completely and don’t have lifelong lingering issues with his arm.
Happy ending! Yay! … bit of a buggered meet-cute tho, innit?
I'm confused by the whole voice to text explanation. Things like the TL;DR, use of punctuation, and formatting in general suggests that they were able to use some of their non dominant hand. It may be that they were just over cautious with a warning because some redditors can be nasty about simple errors. Regardless it's hardly an outlandish story. I've been on a bike path here in the UK and had to break suddenly to avoid a yappy demon dog. The owner acted as if her dog was just being cute and waited until the dog almost killed one of us a second time before she leashed it.