A lot of you have recomended that we keep a Journal on the progress of LO through the ravages of AD. I started howiscaroldoing.blogspot.com. That has been good but I still wish I had kept a personal Journal on Carol. I would like to remember when she started doing/not doing certain things, but time just seems to merge into just one big blur. I think it would be so glad to go back and read about her first anger tantrums or the tought time with Driving.
I would have done it on my computer but some have talked about a paper trail (Journal). Are their others of you that would recommend this?????? bill
I would recommend it!!! I have been keeping a paper journal for about 15 years now,(I have 35 notebooks filled) and just recently went back to the point that AZ started showing it's ugly head and extracted just the parts that refer to DH and the progress on the AZ. I have been typing them into the computer. It is amazing the things I don't remember, but surely happened because they are there "in black and white". I call it "Clyde's Descent into Alzheimer's".
I don't know if I want one, really, despite the fact that writing is what I do. I have chronicled other things--childbirths, for instance, but I don't know. Maybe.
I started a journal just after DX. But, then I decided I really didn't want to do that. When this is all over, I only want to remember the good memories of us, and I don't believe I would ever go back and read a journal of his life after AD.
I started a journal that I wrote in occasionally, when the spirit moved me. Since I've been posting here, I once in a while look up my old posts and copy anything worth saving into a Word document which now serves as a kind of journal.
I use a Journaling program. It also lets me keep other stuff in the same program. One of the things I did was set up a time line on my husband's disease. I pulled the old info from a bunch of places and it is all quite interesting, and useful.
The idea of copying stuff from Spouse is also a good one.
I started a blog too, but the copy I keep on my computer also has my feelings, thoughts and emotions I would not put online in the blog. To me that is what a journal is good for when going through hard times - to write what is going on inside of you and around you. To me it helps to understand and give perspective. I often will get answers or clarification while writing. I started reading my journals from when I was going through the deep depression in the mid 90s and was amazed at how deep into the dark tunnel I was. I know I in that tunnel - never really left, just came to the end near the light. I know I am starting to sink back into it but don't have time now. If it happens, it will have to wait until this AD journey is done.
But, for many of us, journaling is good. I have it buried in my computer and save to a disc also. If you want a paper copy and don't want to write it, you can just print from the computer and put in a notebook. I used the smaller notebooks (I think 5 x 7) so set the pages up that size, bought the paper that fit it, then printed on it.
I have kept a journal so I could reference it when I thought "was I imagining it was all that bad?" Yes, the confabulation, the poor judgement, etc. is all there. I started it before I understood that it was brain damage due to whole brain radiation. And I kept it up after I understood. I think journaling is good for the soul.