My father had anesthesia induced dementia, which is what Coach Dean Smith had. It puts a lot of people in assisted living. He went into the hospital for kidney stones, with a good mind; had surgery and came out confused and with Parkinson's disease. Went on a decline and didn't seem to know where he was at times--sometimes he thought he was in Germany where he had gone on a tour a few years before. Sometimes he would say, "I don't know where I am" and want to go out the door and look for his home. He finally had to go to assisted living because we couldn't lift him when he fell, which seemed to be all the time. We put a framed picture of his cat in his room and I would test him, and ask him who was in the picture and he'd say "Buzz" and look at me as if to say "why are you asking?" Made me feel stupid.

He came home to us from assisted living on Christmas day --I took him back that night. He sounded so very lucid and normal. We commented on the Christmas lights on display. I said "you always liked the blue lights the most". He said, "I still do", with a gentle smile. He could hardly get out of the car because of the Parkinson's. A few days later he was dead from a heart attack. We visited him all the time. Four of his five grown kids live in the area, but we weren't there with him when he died!

We were blessed, tho, cause he still knew who we were.