JOANS’ BLOG – TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2014 – RETURNING TO LIFE

As always, I am writing this blog with the hope that my struggles will help others who have been feeling the same as I. Whether you have placed your spouse or are still caring for them at home, I believe that the emotions I write about have been experienced by one, some, or all of you at one time or another. Know that you are not alone.

I have returned from my hiatus with hopefully, a better attitude and outlook on life. Since placing my husband in a long term care facility in August, 2013, these last 6 months have been extremely difficult for me.

If things had gone according to plan, I should (?) have gone through a period of grieving the separation from my loving husband; grieving the man he was and the life we had lived together; gone through a period of adjustment to living apart; should have made the visits to my husband part of my life, not my only life; and I should have taken the advice of friends, relatives, and professionals, and made a new single life for myself. How much of life ever goes according to plan? Not that I had thought it was going to be easy, but all of those goals proved far more difficult for me than I had imagined.

Initially, after placement, I wrote blogs chronicling my shock, depression, attempts at acceptance, and what I thought was adjustment. Unfortunately, as time went on, I became more, not less, depressed, and I started to withdraw from life, spending most of my time “resting” in bed when I was not visiting Sid.

A big part of the problem was the constant “push/pull” of conflicting emotions. When I visited him (4-5 times a week for 2-3 hours at a time), there was nothing of the man I fell in love with so many years ago.  I wanted to accept that the man I loved was gone, replaced by a confused, dependent child, who clung to me as a lifeline, not a romantic partner. As soon as I thought I was accepting our new life, something would happen to push me back.

One day, last month, I was particularly sad, and told him that this was not what either of us had planned, but it was the way it had to be, and we had to adjust to it. Sorrow washed over me, and I started to sob uncontrollably. As I was covering my eyes, I felt his large, soft, warm hand cover mine, and I heard his soothing voice tell me not to cry. It was the same hand and voice that have comforted me through all of life’s trials, and I fell apart. For one moment in time, my Sid had come out from under all the confusion, blankness, apathy, and forgetfulness to be there when I needed him. How was I to pull away from him when there was a spark of him left that was pushing me back to him? This confusion served only to deepen my depression.

Then, a few weeks later, a major flood changed everything. January is the dry season in South Florida, so what occurred caught everyone, including our best meteorologists, totally off guard. A massive rainstorm – some areas received 10-20 inches of rain in 24 hours - caused such flooding on major highways, main roads, and side streets, that most roads were closed, and I was stuck at the nursing home for the night. When I settled into the bed next to Sid, at first I felt somewhat comforted that, although not sleeping in the same bed, we were together as we had always been and always should be. But then reality intruded. As he sat in his wheelchair, he told me that he did everything for himself, and needed no help getting to bed. Since I was unable to handle the job when he was home, and had an aide 7 nights a week to help, I knew he was delusional. He waited for the aide to come in to help him undress, wash, and be put into bed, still thinking that he was doing it all himself. When he was settled into bed, he looked over at me with tears in his eyes, and told me how much he missed me. Although my heart hurt, I knew at that moment, that he was where he needed to be, both mentally and physically, and home was where I needed to be. It was a harsh reality, but it was the truth. Alzheimer’s Disease had stolen our lives.

When I returned home the next morning, the pulling towards him that occurred during my sobbing episode, was replaced by the pushing away from him during my overnight stay. I do not mean to imply that I wanted to stop visiting him, abandon him, or stop loving him, even though the romantic love had been replaced by love for a child. What I am trying to convey is that the constant conflict of emotions was paralyzing me as surely as the initial shock of separation had done. Rather than coming out of my depression, it was acting as quicksand, drawing me deeper to the bottom, as I struggled mightily to escape. (And this was with an increase in my anti-depressant medication)

As you know, I was unable to pull myself together to write more than one blog the entire month of January. During this time, my son became very ill, could not work for the whole month, and had to cancel the trip he had planned to come to see his father. I was so worried about him that I packed up, put myself on a plane, and flew to San Francisco to be with him.

Whether it was talking with my son constantly for a week and his rock solid support; the change in scenery; getting away from the nursing home atmosphere of depression and illness; or a combination of all of it, I did return home feeling much better.

A bit of ambition has returned, as evidenced by the writing of this blog, as well as a determination to live a life for myself. I will always be an advocate for Sid’s care and visit him regularly, but for the sake of my own sanity, I must limit my visits to part of my week, and not make the nursing home my only life. As angry and sad as I am over the path our lives have taken, I know that I must make a life separate from him or I will die with him.

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