The day my Mom went missing!

July 15, 2015 Mom and Dad ready to go out on the town, July 8, 2015 One of my worst nightmares almost came true last month!  Throughout this whole Alzheimer's ordeal with my Mom, one of my biggest fears has been that she will get lost and that no one will be able to find her.  We've had a handful of close calls in the last year or so, but 5 weeks ago, on Wednesday, June 11th, was the scariest of them all!   "Are you ok?" A friend asked me this question out of the blue that Wednesday night at about 9:30pm, as I was sitting at dinner talking to friends.   "Yes, why?" I asked, a bit confused. "Your Mom has come up missing and it's all over the news!"  Bro Mike and Mom, May 30, 2015 Gasp!  I had never heard anything about this before this time, as I was traveling with my husband and a tour group in Cancun, Mexico that week.  It was a gal in our group that came up to me and asked me if I was ok.  Fortunately I was informed just seconds later that she had been found a few hours earlier.  I had just enough time though for my heart to sink, and to be able to think for just a few seconds that my nightmare might be coming true! It  didn't take long for me to see so many tender mercies with this whole situation!  First, the weather was not too hot that day in Salt Lake City . . it was in the mid 80's rather than the low 100's as it could have been.  Next, she was found in a timely manner once the search party set out . . . with so many kind neighbors and friends who were so willing to drop their lives and search for her and do anything they could to help. And lastly, I feel it a HUGE blessing that I was not home that day to hear that she had been missing!  It would have been a very agonizing and long 9 hours of guessing where she might have gone!   Celebrating my sis Paige's 50th Birthday, May 2015 On our trip to Cancun, we stayed at a resort where we purchased wifi for the week.  I was able to get internet and text home whenever I wanted and found myself checking my phone on a fairly regular basis all week.  To hear nothing from the family usually meant that all was well at home!  It was different on that Wednesday that my Mom came up missing!   That happened to be the only day of our trip that week that we left the resort and went on a day long bus excursion hours away to Chichen Itza.  Knowing that I wouldn't have wifi or use of my phone anyway, I left my phone behind.    The news story I found on Facebook!  We returned back to our resort at about 8pm that night and went straight to dinner.  It was after we had finished eating, when we were just sitting around talking, that a gal in our group approached me and told me the news.  She had been back to her room and had found the news story on Facebook I believe.   Quickly we returned to our room to gather all the details.  I remember my heart pounding fast and I had a few emotional moments thinking about what could have been! I found numerous text messages and messages on Facebook and I spent about the next hour or more texting people back and gathering as many details as I could.  Here is the basic story I gathered that night and in the days following . . . . . . thanks to my Dad and my sister Paige who filled me in on many of the little details!   Tanner's high school graduation, June 2015 That Wednesday morning, 5 weeks ago, my Mom walked outside to their front yard as she often does.  She'll sometimes just go fiddle and pace around their yard, sometimes picking up the leaves, branches and rattley things that fall off their trees . . . I think that helps her feel useful and gives her something to do.  My Dad yelled out to my Mom and told her to come in because he had to shower and Mafi was coming.  Mafi, one of their awesome caretakers, was supposed to be there at any minute and Dad needed to get ready so that he could go to the clinic where he volunteers every Wednesday.  He got in the shower and found when he got out that she was not in the house and was no longer out front.  I don't believe he worried too much initially, as this was not unusual for her to wander off.  They would just drive around and usually find her right away, or a kind neighbor would see her and call my Dad or bring her home. My Dad had to leave since he had people with appointments to see him at the clinic that morning, but Mafi arrived and drove around to look for her.  I have since heard that Mafi was worried sick, calling her daughter in tears and driving around for hours before finally going back to the house . . . with the hope that someone would call with word that Mom had knocked on their door.  She heard nothing!  I'm sure that my Dad and Mafi kept in touch during those few hours that my Dad was gone, but when he returned, he called the police to report the situation.  My Dad especially did not want this situation to escalate to something huge, and knowing that this was not unusual for her to be gone for a few hours, they decided to wait for a bit longer.  The police told my Dad that they would inform him if anyone called about a lost woman with Alzheimers, and my Dad was to call back if she wasn't found. At about 2:30 that afternoon (4.5 hours into the situation), my Dad contacted my older sister Paige who was working at the time, but left immediately to go help my Dad in their search. They drove around separately for hours, to places where they thought she might be prone to wander.  They're guessing they both put over a hundred miles on their cars that day! My sister then called my Dad and together they decided it was time to get the police involved! When a person is declared "MISSING", I guess it is a very big deal and is taken very seriously!  Word is spread to all police stations across the area, news stations are notified and her photo is sent out across the internet and on television.  Tired parents at our house! June, 2015 :)  My sister called the bishop of their ward and word quickly spread through a ladder text to ward members and neighbors to meet at 5:30pm at their ward building for an organized search.  My sister passed the word on to everyone she found on the street and my Dad and sister met with the police and gave them a picture of her. I heard that around 70 people showed up to the search party that afternoon!  It was decided that my sister would stay back at the house to answer any calls that came in and to be there when she was found, and my Dad chose to be a part of the search. I think it would have made me stir crazy to stay back at the house . . . I would have wanted to be in on the search!  My sis was perfect at the job back home though as she sat with their home phone in one hand and her cell phone in the other, and she said the phone rang off the hook!  The police sent out a reverse 911 call to everyone in the neighborhood and she said the phones were ringing nonstop!   My sister said that people were amazing, coming out of the woodwork to help in whatever ways they could.  I guess about eight officers went off in search of her while one officer stayed at the house to head things up.  Even a bloodhound was brought to search for my Mom.  The dog was taken into Mom’s closet to smell her clothes so that they could pick up her scent for the search. My Dad in the meantime was searching every inch of scrub oak near their house. There's a park near their house and very near Hogle Zoo where my Mom has been lost before, and that's where my Dad chose to look first.   They began to wonder if it was possible that Mom could have gone up the mountain.  If I were there, I would have said "For sure that would be one of the first places to look!"  She loves the mountains and had said to me many times in the weeks previous that she really wanted to go up "those mountains", the mountains just east of their house that are pretty steep and not the best hiking trails!  She had never done it alone before, but that was definitely a possibility in their minds!    It was now 7 hours from the time she had last been seen and there was still no sign of her. Several people started heading up the mountains by my Mom and Dad’s house. The story had now been on the news with her picture, and unfortunately, this is how many family members and friends started to hear of what was going on.  Many people started calling and showing up, wondering what they could do to help.  It's too bad that family and friends had to find out that way, but my Dad and sister had no way of calling everyone . . . . and besides, I know my Dad.  He doesn't like to bother or burden people with his problems.  It makes me wonder, if I would have been home, at what point would I have heard about it?  Hmmm, I have no idea, but I have a feeling it would have been sometime that afternoon.   What we didn’t know at the time is that several other wards in their stake had contacted their members and lots of people were getting in on the search.  I even had friends from here in Draper and friends from various places around the valley tell me that they were ready and willing to join in on that search!  I have a feeling that if it went on for an extended period of time, we would have had hundreds!  That means the world to me to know that there are that many people out there that love my Mom and family enough to drop what they were doing and go look for my Mom!  My Dad told me that there was even one gal that made a flyer and spent $100 of her own money to run them off so that they could be hung up all over town!  People are truly amazing! Jake's mission homecoming, June 28, 2015 One of the search parties from the ward, headed by a gal named Katie, who my husband and I went to high school with, drove up a circle towards the mountain where the mountain has been fenced off by the homeowners.  Coincidentally, my Mom and I had walked up that very circle a few weeks earlier and my Mom had talked about how fun it would be to get up on that mountain!  I told her we couldn't hike there because it was fenced off and because the mountain is too steep!  Katie didn't know why she chose that particular street and circle to search, but at some point she caught a glimpse of a bright orange shirt half way up the mountain. Katie said that if she had seen that three seconds later, Mom would not have been visible as she walked behind a group of trees.  It's possible that if that would have happened, Mom would have been stuck up there overnight and we all would have had a sleepless night!   There were no trails where Mom was found. She had no water, no hat, and no sunscreen. She was scratched up, a little dehydrated, sunburned, and very tired, but good other than that!  Katie’s brother in law Todd, a doctor, jumped the fence and ran uphill quite a ways, with no trail, to get to her, and had water to give her!  The police search and rescue helicopter was out looking for Mom at this point and was sent to pick her up as soon as they heard she had been found.  Although the doctor on foot thought she was fine and could have walked down herself, the helicopter insisted she go with them to be checked out at the hospital.  She received some IV fluids and was quickly released.  By the time she got home, she couldn’t remember that she had been lost up in the mountains, in a helicopter or in the hospital.  Amazing!   Chichen Itza, Mexico - June 11, 2015 We will forever be grateful for the many willing friends and family that helped out that day, were on their way to help, or were ready and willing to do whatever was needed!  You are all awesome and we love you!  And thanks to the police department and search and rescue for their great efforts and concern.  And of course biggest thanks to our Father above for the many tender mercies in our lives!   Despite the difficulties of this horrible disease, and hard times that life brings sometimes, life is good!  Remember, this is not the real life!   We can do this!