JOAN’S BLOG – FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2008- THE EYES HAVE IT

First of all, I must thank all of you for once again coming through for me, and giving me comfort and support when I needed it most. Tuesday and Wednesday were nightmarish days – your understanding and validation helped me cope.

I have often read and heard of caregivers saying that Alzheimer’s Disease is in the eyes. They can see the blankness; the emptiness; the nothingness, in the eyes of their afflicted loved one. I have even heard from those who say it can be seen in the eyes long before the “emptiness”.  Sometimes it is a “fog”; sometimes a “puzzlement”. Whatever it is, everyone says it is in the eyes.

Except for obvious confusion and the absolute anger and hate I was seeing in Sid’s eyes, I never truly “saw” what others were speaking of – until Wednesday night.  He had been talking and crying for at least 2 hours about the usual – how he could not get past his hurt and anger over the driving, but this time, he was actually making sense, explaining quite coherently how infuriated it made him to have to get into the passenger side of the car; how the anger kept building and he could not control it. How he knew he was hurting me with his insults, taunting, and tantrums, and how it hurt him to be inflicting so much pain upon me, but he was unable to stop himself. I much preferred that honest assessment of his feelings to the cold, sneering, back stabbing taunts and outbursts.

Then he sat down with his laptop and read my blog from that day – When Hate Turns into Anger (scroll down below for the blog). He is always better able to process anything visual, including writing, than what he hears, and apparently reading that blog opened a window in his brain. That is when it happened. I looked up at him and into his eyes, and saw my husband again. I saw the man I fell in love with on that cold November night in 1969. He got up, sat next to me on the couch, put his arms around me, and told me how much he loved me, that he would try the medication, try volunteer work, do anything to help himself because he could not bear the way he was hurting me. In that moment, I knew what it must feel like if a spouse could return from the dead. I knew it would not last. I did not care. I once again felt love and comfort in the arms of the man I adore, and it was enough for me to have him for one evening.

It was in his eyes that I saw my real husband, and it was in those eyes that I realized I had been seeing Alzheimer’s Disease this past month. The difference is startling. It is frightening. It helped me understand just how powerful this Alzheimer possession is. And everyone is correct – it is in the eyes.

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