Doctor with no sense of humor - Alzheimer's Disease & Dementia Message Board

needtoescape · 01-26-2006, 09:45 PM

They had a cancellation and my husband had his neuropsych exam today. For a joke, he covered one of his cowboy hats with aluminum foil. He was a "space cowboy" and he was all prepared with a plan... They would ask him about the hat... He would say it was to shield out messages from the aliens. They would ask "What aliens?". And he would answer with various nationalities. Well, he carried his aluminum foil hat with him..and not one of the people he saw throughout the process even cracked a smile when he told them about his planned joke. Do you suppose they thought he was really crazy? Or were they offended by his attempt at humor? Or did they have no sense of humor at all? I half expect the report from his test to refer to it in some way, haha.

We get results on Feb. 16th.

Martha H · 01-27-2006, 04:54 AM

Wow, NTE I would be worried that their obvious lack of humor would make for a worse report than needed ... perhaps they saw this joke as a sign of paranoia? Has your DH always had this type of humor?

I don't know if it's a good idea to fool around with neuropathic physicians ...
Hope the results reflect his real condition and are not twisted by this attempt to entertain the staff!!

Love,

Martha

needtoescape · 01-27-2006, 08:13 AM

Yes, he has always had a bit of an unconventional sense of humor. If they, after 6 or 7 hours with my husband, can't distinguish an attempt at humor from paranoia, then I will doubt their professional expertise completely! I think he presented it to them as a joke - so I don't think they really thought he was serious. I think they probably just take themselves a little bit too seriously and forget that people undergoing these tests may need to joke (poorly or inappropriately even) to relieve some stress. Or maybe they were offended - thinking he was poking fun at people with mental illness? Anyway, it will be interesting to see what the results are. I think they will attribute some of the problem to depression. I wonder if depression really could be the cause of the memory changes? He has been depressed as long as I've known him - but the memory issues are much worse in the last few months. He told them he thought about suicide a lot. He told them about his road rage. Sounds like they had pretty thorough questions. Hubby thinks he did "ok" on most of the tests. He doesn't think the memory problems will be evident in the results. I guess we'll see on the 16th.

barbaric_yawp · 01-27-2006, 08:14 AM

Well, I just laughed my hat off. I am such a jokester, that this is something I would do. Those people need to loosen up! It is obvious that your hubby has a sense of reality, and he would had divulged this sooner or later...life and humor go hand in hand, if you can't laugh, you are not alive...

Next time I am out and about and see an aluminum hat on someone, I will give them a hug and tell them that I am the alien they were trying to avoid--I will admonish them to try copper next time, that metal has better repelling properties :-)

B.Y.

needtoescape · 01-27-2006, 08:19 AM

P.S. Please don't think I am flippant about his suicide thoughts. It's just that he has talked about it for 17 years... and often in a way that might be considered manipulative... and if I got frantic about it every time, I would have had a nervous breakdown time and time again in our 16 year marriage. I got him to get some counseling one time - but he did not stay with it. I eventually sought out the same therapist for my own counseling - since she had enough sessions with him to understand some of my issues. I don't want him to kill himself, but it is not my responsibility if he makes that choice someday. Sorry to be so grim when this started out about his "space cowboy" get-up...