At the course where he plays every Tuesday, his wife tells me he’s having a bad day. For him, that often means anger. Or frustration. Or both.
He has a lot of bad days these days. Because on most days, most tasks are difficult for him. But golf is an escape. An escape from a deteriorating reality.
“I get lost on the way to the mailbox,” Bolt said.
Then, he laughs. But it’s hard to tell if he’s joking.
When I meet Bolt, he asks if I golf. A few minutes later on the putting green, he asks again. He shows me his wallet. Inside, there’s a small device that lets his wife know where he is.
Before he tees off, he gives her his wallet. She gives it back.
“Just in case,” she said.
Bolt tells me he once played golf at Colerain High School. And for years, he was a decorated professor at the Christ College of Nursing. His wife, Becky, said he taught the hard classes — the ones no one else wanted to teach.
“He can’t do any of that now,” Becky said. “I have to continue to remind him from moment to moment what’s going on.”
Sitting in a golf cart on the second hole, I ask Larry what his journey has been like. He starts to answer and then stops.
“Ask me that question after I put this ball in the hole,” Larry said. “Don’t forget.”
He walks through the fairway to his ball. Then, turns around and yells.
“Don’t forget,” Larry said. “Because I forgot it already — I swear to God.”
When he sits back down in the cart, he laughs.
“Now what was that question I asked you to remember?”
Larry is living with dementia.
“I lose my train of thought,” he said. “But I love being out here, rather than at home sitting in the recliner. It takes my mind off everything.”
While the 76-year-old plays golf, Becky walks their dog around the course. Just in case.
“It’s going to get worse, but right now, this is what I have,” she said. “So, I’ll enjoy whatever I can.”
On the practice green before his round, Becky gives him a hug and tells him to have fun. Because it hasn’t always been fun — for either of them.
“I’ve lost my companion,” Becky said. “I’ve lost the person I was going to grow old with. Now, I’m a caregiver.”
In an exam room at the University of Cincinnati’s Gardner Neuroscience Institute, Latonya Whipple waits for her mom’s test results. She’s crying. Because she’s a caregiver now, too.
Whipple thinks her mom has dementia. But she isn’t meeting with a doctor to talk about it; she’s meeting with a social worker. The same one who’s helped the Bolts.
“I never expected to be in this space,” Whipple said, wiping away tears. “I don’t know what to do.”
That’s why she’s here with Candace Burch, who calls herself a geriatric social worker. Burch has a new position at UC Health, one that was created to get more people like Whipple’s mom in sooner. Because experts say early diagnosis for dementia can make a huge difference in the quality of someone’s life.
Burch works to connect people to resources and make the disease less scary to talk about. And UC officials tell me they’re expanding her role to work with more patients and more doctors.
Before she leaves, Whipple gives the social worker a hug.
“If you don’t take care of yourself, you aren’t going to be there to take care of your mom,” Burch said.
Whipple tells her to expect a call.
Back at the golf course, Becky Bolt tells me she’s made the same call. Several times. And when Larry’s son died last month, she did it again.
“They’re there to listen,” Becky said.
Out on the course, Larry seems to be having a good day. Tomorrow might be different, but today he laughs. A lot.
And when I ask him about his journey again, he tells me he knows he’s not living in a fairy tale. He knows he’s closer to death than most. Then, he holds his putter up in the air. He squints into the sun and hits his ball toward the hole.
“Get your notebook out,” Larry shouts.
The ball falls in.
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