JOAN’S BLOG – FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 2010 – THE LENGTHS WE WILL GO

After about five years as a Special Educator, I could always tell when an emotionally disturbed, cognitively challenged, or psychotic student was going to erupt. Since preventing a disaster is always better than cleaning up after one occurs, I learned the art of prevention.  I actually became very good at it.

Little did I know it would come in handy in dealing with my AD husband. Having endured too many Alzheimer’s induced tantrums in the last 7 years, I have no tolerance for them. They cause my stress level and anger to soar off the charts.

Late Thursday afternoon, as Sid was getting ready to take his blood glucose level, I heard him groan and swear loudly.  Upon inquiring, he told me that the error message “E-3”, showed up on his machine. As with most people afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease, he does not take well to the unexpected. This was my cue that we were in for an explosion if I did not fix the problem immediately. I told him to calm down, that the instruction manual was in the drawer with the medications. Unfortunately, when I took out the manual, he had apparently “misplaced” the English manual, (of course he accused me of the crime)and I was now holding the one written in Spanish, a language I never really acquired.

This setback was enough to start him seething and stressing. Oh how I was not in the mood to deal with a tantrum. I sent him into the den to a big box of magazines and “stuff”, and told him to go through it; perhaps the manual was in there.

In the meantime, I got to work on the computer. I quickly found a site that translates Spanish phrases into English. In the true spirit rivaling any sitcom on TV, I  typed the first sentence (The program would not take more than a sentence) from the instructions, got the translation, brought him his meter, and told him what to do. I then ran back to the computer, typed in the next sentence, translated it, ran back into the den, told him what to do, ran back to the computer, and so forth until the meter was fixed.  Tantrum averted.

Thinking about it afterwards, I thought the solution was pretty clever of me and the entire incident quite funny. He did not see the humor in it, but all I cared about was that I did not have to cope with a volcanic eruption of Icelandic proportions. Since I no longer have the stamina for them, I apparently will go to any lengths to avoid one.

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