My Daughter Makes Me A Special Coffee Every Morning To Help With My Memory Loss. I Thought She Was An Angel Until My Doctor Called With A Terrifying Blood Test Result. Now I Am Watching Her Through A Hidden Camera, And I Cannot Believe What She Just Dropped Into My Mug.
An Unexpected Birthday Call
I know how to read people, and I know when something’s wrong. 29 years as a firefighter taught me that. But nothing prepared me for what I saw on my doctor’s computer screen that Tuesday morning.
It was supposed to be a good day, my 62nd birthday. Andrea, my daughter, had moved back home 6 months earlier with her husband, Kyle.
“Dad, you shouldn’t be alone in this big house,”
she’d said.
“Let us take care of you.”
After Helen died 2 years ago from cancer, I’d spent too many nights alone in that four-bedroom house in Tucson. So I said yes. I thought it would be nice. I thought I was lucky. I was wrong.
The call came at 6:00 in the morning. Dr. Vincent Reyes. Vinnie and I went back 40 years, since the night I pulled him from a burning apartment building when he was in medical school. We’d been friends ever since.
“Richard, don’t drink your morning coffee today.”
His voice was tight, controlled, the way mine used to sound on the radio when I was trying to keep a rookie calm at a bad scene.
“Don’t eat anything Andrea prepares. Come to my clinic right now.”
My hand stopped halfway to the coffee maker. Andrea always made my coffee, every single morning for 6 months.
“Vinnie, what are you talking about?”
“I can’t explain over the phone. Come now. Use the side entrance. Don’t tell Andrea where you’re going.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Good, you should be scared. And Richard, your life depends on this.”
He hung up. I stood there in my kitchen looking at the coffee maker Andrea had already set up the night before. She did that every evening; put in the filter, measured the grounds, filled the water. All I had to do was press the button.
She was so thoughtful. Or so I’d thought. I left the coffee untouched.
I told Andrea I had an early breakfast meeting with some old guys from the department. She smiled, kissed my cheek, said,
“Happy birthday, Dad. We’ll celebrate tonight. I’m making your favorite dinner.”
The Toxicology Report
20 minutes later I was sitting in Vinnie’s office. He closed the door, closed the blinds, then turned his computer screen toward me.
“I need you to stay calm,”
he said. Then he showed me.
It was a toxicology report. My name at the top. The blood work he’d run two weeks earlier during my annual physical.
I thought something was off.
He said,
“You’ve been coming in complaining about memory problems, confusion, dizziness. You said you felt like you were losing your mind.”
I thought it was grief, or maybe early Alzheimer’s.
“That’s what I thought too, until I ran an expanded panel.”
He pointed at a line on the screen.
“Lorazepam, high levels. And here, Alprazolam. Both benzodiazepines, anti-anxiety medications.”
I stared at the chemical names.
“But I don’t take those. I’ve never been prescribed those.”
I know Vinnie’s jaw was tight.
“So I called in a favor with Maria at Walgreens. She checked the records. Three prescriptions filled in your name over the past 4 months. All picked up by Andrea.”
The room tilted. I grabbed the edge of his desk.
“The signatures were forged,”
Vinnie continued.
“She’s been using your insurance information, probably intercepting the pharmacy calls when they came to verify these doses. Richard, over time they cause exactly what you’ve been experiencing: memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment.”
He paused.
“They make someone look incompetent.”
“Why would Andrea do this?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
I couldn’t. My mind was racing through the past 6 months. The forgotten appointments, the times I couldn’t remember conversations we’d supposedly had. Andrea’s concerned looks.
“Dad, you asked me to pay that bill, don’t you remember?”
No, I didn’t remember.
“Dad, you told me to deposit that check. Did I?”
I couldn’t recall.
“Dad, maybe we should look into getting you some help, just to be safe.”
“She’s been gaslighting me,”
the words came out as a whisper.
“I think it’s more than that.”
Vinnie pulled out a folder.
“I did some checking. Called an old friend who’s a lawyer now. Richard, has Andrea mentioned anything about power of attorney?”
My blood went cold.
“Last week she said since I was having memory problems maybe we should set something up just in case. She had papers drawn up already. Said it was for my protection.”
“Did you sign them?”
“No, I said I’d think about it.”
Vinnie leaned forward.
“If she gets power of attorney while you’re incapacitated, she controls everything. Your house, your pension, your savings, Helen’s life insurance. Everything.”
I thought about Kyle, Andrea’s husband. I’d never liked him. Smooth talker, always had some investment scheme going. Andrea met him 3 years ago at a real estate seminar. They got married fast, too fast.
Helen had been worried.
“He’s using her,”
Helen had said one night, two months before the cancer took her.
“I can see it in his eyes.”
