JOAN’S BLOG – MON/TUE, SEPTEMBER 12/13, 2011 – TRYING NOT TO LOOK AHEAD

We often discuss taking one day at a time when dealing with our spouses’ Alzheimer’s Disease. What we generally mean is to deal with the behaviors, problems, issues, and emotions that have arisen on that particular day, and not worry about what happened yesterday or what will happen tomorrow. It is good advice, and was explored in a July 2008 blog. It is one of the lessons I think I have mastered. Except………………..

Except lately, as hard as I try not to, I am looking to the future, and dreading what I see.  As I read the message board stories of placing spouses in nursing homes, living apart from them, watching them deteriorate to infants, lose all memory and functioning, and finally take their last breaths, I am becoming more and more stressed. I do not know what, if anything, I envisioned occurring as we aged and closed in on death, when I embarked on this journey of love at the age of 21, but an Alzheimer death surely was not it.

These thoughts of Sid’s physical and mental deterioration, impossible physical caregiving for me, and nursing home placement for him, have entered my mind and will not leave because of his declining physical health. We have more appointments with more specialists concerning his fractured bones, total body pain, and other internal problems. I know that treating any of his physical ailments aggressively will hasten the advancement of his Alzheimer’s Disease. I have seen it numerous times with friends and acquaintances in my support group. Falls, surgery, cancer therapy, drug therapy for pain – every single spouse who has experienced one or more of the aforementioned has ended up in a facility with rapidly declining Alzheimer’s symptoms and died.

In the 4 years, since I launched this website, I have learned to deal with problems one at a time and not look ahead to more. The research I have done for the website, the experts I have met, and the advice given on the message boards, have helped me as much as they have helped you. I have learned and evolved. At the moment, I seem to have a handle on dealing with his mental declines. But lately, I have felt myself spiraling out of control with thoughts of the bleak future, because of his mounting physical ailments. I cannot stop thinking about how they are going to affect his Alzheimer’s Disease, how I am going to cope with either taking care of him at home, or placing him in a facility. And watching him die. I honestly have no idea how to stop stressing over the impact his physical deterioration may have on accelerating his Alzheimer’s Disease, and the life/death decisions I may be forced to make.

Currently, “one day at a time” is not working for me.

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