JOAN’S BLOG – THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2013 - REFLECTIONS

Since starting this website in 2007, I have tried to write blogs to which every Alzheimer Spouse could relate. Although the blogs are taking you through my own journey through Alzheimer Hell, I have tried to vary them to appeal to those on every different leg of this involuntary trip. However, since placing my husband into a nursing home in August, I realize that my blogs have focused almost solely on the trauma that placement has caused me. I never thought anything could be worse than the period of Alzheimer rages and hatefulness my once loving husband had displayed towards me in 2008, but the reality of being separated from him forever, reduced to daily visits, sleeping alone without him by my side for the first time in four decades, and attempting to make a single life for myself, has been worse than anything I have endured during this 10 year nightmare.

Going forward into 2014, although I will continue to chronicle my journey through Alzheimer’s Disease with my husband, I plan to write more blogs that will appeal to everyone, whether you have just begun or are nearing the end.

The main theme of this website is, and has always been, that caring for a SPOUSE with Alzheimer’s Disease is different than caring for a parent or grandparent with the disease. The emotional issues are "UNIQUE" , and above all else, I have tried to educate Alzheimer Spouses that whatever they are feeling – anger, confusion, shock, sadness, loneliness, exhaustion, impatience – at what Alzheimer’s Disease has done to them, their spouses, and their marriages, is “normal” for this most abnormal of situations. I want to assure them that they are not alone in their thoughts and feelings. We share them. We understand them. We are a group of people like none other. Others can sympathize, but only we are able to truly understand the grueling emotional toll Alzheimer’s Disease takes on the “well” spouse and the marriage.

If you are new to this journey and website, I urge you to begin at the beginning and read the “previous blogs”. There will be a situation or emotion in most of them that will have you nodding your head and saying, “Yes, yes, that is the way I feel. I AM NOT ALONE.”

If you are a veteran in the Alzheimer trenches or on this website, I urge you to share your experience, wisdom, and advice with those who are just beginning.  Without others who have gone before me and have been generous with their advice and wisdom, I would not have made it as far as I have without having been hospitalized for depression, stress, and anxiety. This is not an easy path we travel, and we need each other desperately.

I want to take this opportunity to thank those of you who have been patient with my abundance of “placement” blogs and also the lack of blogs. These last 4 months have been grueling on my emotions and have paralyzed me emotionally and physically. I am beginning to feel well enough to work and write again, but it is not steady progress. There are days when I take a step forward, and days when I take two steps backwards. I admire those of you who have adjusted so much better than I to placement. We are a diverse group, and thus slog our way through in whatever manner suits us.

I also want to remind everyone that the holiday season comes with its own unique set of stressors for both the Alzheimer Spouse and the patient. Please be sure to read my Holiday Stress Relief Tips that will help you through this stressful time of year. You can click either the link under Breaking News or in this paragraph.

Thank you for your support.

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