Hi & Welcome Jeannette, I am sorry for your need to join us, however, I am sure you will find comfort here. This group has been a godsend to me. My husband is 58 years old with FTD. Again, Welcome.

Good morning susan-hope you're feeling better

welcome Jeanette,this is the best place and I can`t express how happy I was to find it, I`m sorry you have the need for it but glad you found us,I`m 63 and dh is 70 today he has alz.

Jeanette - welcome. Sorry you are here. It will be interesting to find out how AD and other dementias are treated and looked at in Holland. My husband was diagnosed with aMCI but has now progress to EOAD according to the neuropsych testing he just had done. He is 61.

Be sure to post in 'age of caregiver' thread.

Welcome to you, Jeanette ~ Do hope you will be encouraged and nutured through this time in your life by all the wonderful friends you are sure to make here on this site...It has been good for me for many months now. Glad you are here, but sorry for your circumstances.

Welcome Jeanette. This site is wonderful and will help you out any way we can.

Thank you, everyone, and especially to Joan for getting this site going. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the warm welcome!
Since discovering the site (my son was talking about blogs and some interesting ones that he had found, so I got the bright idea of doing a Google search for a blog on alzheimer's. Bingo!) I've been using all my spare time reading Joan's blogs and now the message boards. No where near through it yet, but what a wealth of information and support.

Yes, I do really live in Holland. I'm a rural Ohio girl and met Siem in 1962 on my way to a Junior Year Abroad at Heidelberg Germany. I was on the SS New Amsterdam with my group and he was working a summer job as a night steward. A shipboard romance that stuck! I did go back to the states for my senior year and then managed to get a Fulbright which allowed me to be in Amsterdam for a year. At the end of that year we got married and have lived in Holland ever since except for a year in New Jersey (Siem worked for Exxon). We raised two boys, I taught English lit at a teacher training college (they were thrilled to have a "native speaker") and later ran our own computer training company: an exciting time. The decline of the company after 15 years I now think coincided with my husband's lapse into AD.
He was diagnosed last December after a long course to tests and scans and has been on Exelon since then; I think it helps, but he continues to decline slowly. Mild to middle stage, I think.
Holland has been a good place to live and raise a family. There is affordable compulsory health insurance so medical expenses are no worry. We have good friends and Siem's two brothers live nearby. Our younger son lives an hour's drive away with his wife and daughter, soon that will be two daughters. The elder son lives in Pennsylvania with family (three kids). Up to now we've gone to see them three times a year but from now on travel is going to be much more difficult. They were here in May. My own family is very supportive, but spread out all over the States. We all get together for Christmas. I don't know if I'll be able to visit my mother (87) in Oak Harbor before Christmas.
Out town has just this year started an "Alzheimer's Café" which is an informal support group open to all: patients, spouses, friends and family. There is a speaker who is usually interviewed on some prearranged theme (last time it was about mourning for the disappearing person). I took Siem along to the first couple but he didn't like it, was unable to explain why. I have not yet found the kind of new friends that Joan has been able to find, but am getting to know some of the regulars.
My husband was always the one to take initiatives and make decisions so this has been a real adjustment for me. He can't even decide what to eat in a restaurant or whether he wants a cup of coffee. Finding that I can do it (decisions, finances, social calendar, taxes, gardening, simple repairs) has been some compensation.
He has never admitted that there is anything wrong with him. That makes it impossible to talk or laugh about it. His mother had severe AD for several years and he thinks all the testing, medication, etc, is to keep him from getting it. This is the fib I use to get him to hospital appointments and to take the medication.
Sorry I've made this so long. I'll keep in shorter from now on!

There I am again: forgot to mention that we are both 66 and live in Rhoon, a village near Rotterdam.

Jeanette - your post was not too long. I found it very interesting and great to get to know you. I even thank you for breaking it into paragraphs. I have a hard time following long post that are one big paragraph. Just a quirk I guess.

My husband is 61 and new to this within in the last year although AD runs in his family. His dad was diagnosed in the late 1980s and still around but just a walking sombie. His younger sister was diagnosed in 2005 at age 55.

Oh, I forgot to mention -- you need to search for that under Topics.

Hi Jeanette. Nancy here...from Texas. Welcome...and know you've been accepted into a very kind and caring group . It's akin to reading a step by step textbook into the disease with side bars. My husband has never admitted he has Alzheimer's, and in fact has often denied that he has anything wrong. I do not think he has spoken the word "Alzheimer's" to me. He once told his daughter that he thought "something was wrong with him, but he couldn't figure it out"... I decided that it didn't matter. You will often hear the expression "Pick your battles". We are here for YOU, so don't hesitate to come here if you're facing a challenge, have a question - or want to share a little humor. We caregivers have a very unique sense of humor - that only we understand. Sometimes it's easier to laugh than cry! (My husband has filled his mouth with shave cream instead of toothpaste, lodged his hearing aid far up inside his nostril, gargled with after shave cologne - and the list goes on and on.) - NancyB

Okay, Divvi...you have my attention......so, if it can't be put on this board you better email the details to me....LOL!

Divvi, curiosity may have killed the cat....but we have most of our nine lives left.

Yes, divvi, thank you, I've found the topics (at least some of them). I'm beginning to think keeping up on this site is like a full-time job. It is fun. I find myself sitting down at the computer at odd moments of the day, just for a quick break to read some more topics.

Jeanette - I gave up on the old post. I find keeping up with the current ones is enough work. And, occasionally the old ones will come back to the top. And, I learned to not read through ones that don't really interest me now.

Divvi is right - if you read too much of the 'nasty' or 'challenging' symptoms of this disease it can be overwhelming and depressing. It helped me when it was finally posted that most AD patients do not get so severe. I was looking at the worse case scenario even though my FIL was docile throughout his disease (he still is just a walking zombie).