JOAN’S BLOG – WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2008 – HUMOR IN THE MIDST OF THE PAIN

I don’t smile much anymore. For someone who has always been known for her sense of humor, I find that very sad. Alzheimer’s Disease took away the husband I adored; the husband who adored me; the husband with whom I walked hand in hand through life, two people trusting each other implicitly to be each other’s rock of strength. The Blogs tell the story – if anyone is new to this site and reading for the first time, click on “Previous Blogs” and read the path of destruction Alzheimer’s Disease has carved through my marriage.

However, as my “Humor Section” demonstrates, sometimes in the midst of all this pain, there can be laughter, and usually at the oddest times.

Yesterday, was Sid’s first infusion for the BAP III drug trial. We were in a rather small, crowded room, the space taken up mostly by an oversized, comfortable, leather recliner, in which he was to sit for the duration. As I related in a Message Board post last night under Drug trials/vaccine trials, there were technicians and doctors in and out of that room for 3 hours, taking his vital signs, checking his neurological signs, and making conversation with him. Not ONCE, not ONCE, during that entire time did my husband appear confused or forgetful.  He answered all of their conversational questions accurately, volunteering information about previous events that he recalled. He told the attending doctor, whom we had never met, how impressed he was with our doctor’s presentation at the conference we attended in JUNE. Not ONCE did he complain to any of these people how angry he was at me for “pulling the plug” on him by stopping his driving. And believe me, he never misses an opportunity to tell anyone.

Fast forward 3 ½ hours. It is now toward the end of the first session. We are alone in the room. No technicians, no doctors. Just us. For the past few weeks, he had been telling everyone that the trial he was going into was supposed to break up the plaque in his brain; he had been told that the “bugs” had been worked out in Phase II of the trial, so he was confident he would not have any negative side effects; we had discussed it countless times, and he seemed to have a good grasp of the facts. Now he turns to me and says, “What is this drug supposed to do for me? Have they ever done this on anyone before?”   I could not help it - I burst out laughing. The absurdity of the entire situation hit me at once, and for a change, the tears in my eyes were from laughter instead of sadness. Even he laughed, because from my reaction, he figured that he had asked those questions rather often.

So for a few moments, there was a little levity in our lives. We certainly needed it.

As I related in more detail in my message board post from last night, he will be able to start on the anti-depressant in 5 days. 4 days now. Not that I’m counting.

Tomorrow: The Energizer Bunny Caregiver – keeps on going………straight into the hospital.

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