stayed up till wee hours reading past long thread on driving. we've known this was coming and today is the day but I am scared to death. He will have many advantages others don't as I moved us to this small tourist town so he could walk to virtually ANYTHING, so he won't be as limited as many. But he loves driving and even though we've talked about it and a couple months ago I told him to start preparing for this, I have no idea how he is going to take it. I'm pretty certain he thinks he can still drive okay, but I don't. His internist was no help in his last appt. when I asked when I would know he should stop driving and he said he would get lost and/or have a fender bender. Oh, great, and what if that "fender bender" cost a life? No matter......in 15 minutes I'm going to face this.
I fear he may react as Sid did and also fear that he will increase his walking to the neighbood bars to "listen to music." He was DX 1-2007 and his decline has been slow even though he was 64 when DX, but he seems to be on a more rapid decline now. Okay.....here I go......keep me in your thoughts.
Keeping you in my thoughts, Terry. Here's hoping it will work out like mine did. He handed me his keys and has never driven again nor asked to. I know I'm one of the lucky ones and I'll be thinking of you.
It went well. At least in the sense that he didn't protest. I'm grateful for that although handling this feels sadder at the moment. He's depressed. Of course. It was a short conversation. I said "You remember how we talked a couple months ago about how you would need to stop driving at some point." He nodded. "Now's the time," I said very simply. Then waited. Nothing. Then I went into a little more detail. Mentioned that I had spent last night reading on the web and reminded him what I learned before about how liable we would be if an accident happened and even if the risk is small I feel at this point I am not willing to accept that risk. I relayed one of the convos on the thread here where someone thought (as I have) that her DH could drive okay and someone else said something to the effect that explaining that to someone whose child had just been killed in an accident he caused would sound a lot different, that they wouldn 't really care that we (the caregivers) are trying to give our loved ones the pleasures and conveniences they desire and feel they can handle.
He simply agreed. I think the "child" mention hit him (but maybe not who knows) as his own daughter was killed in an accident at 19.
I confirmed that he was "freely" giving up driving and he agreed. I told him I was glad because I had read how some people's spouses got so angry and blamed their spouse. He said interestingly enough, "I'm still too sane for that." (obviously he doesn't realize how much he blames me for already)
Both our little Bichons were sitting on the couch and they could sense the mood and got so quiet bowing their heads and remaining very still, not even reminding us it was dinner time.
We were supposed to go with a friend to an Art Walk this evening held every year in town where the artists open up their studios and there's wine and food and the community turns out. I thought it would be good for him to get his mind off this but he says he's dizzy and doesn't feel like walking. He's definitely depressed, of course. I told him I had two new movies from Netflix and we could watch a movie tonight and he said "I don't know if I can do that. I'm not sure I can do anything right now." So, we'll see. I'm definitely not leaving him alone. My friend thinks I should do SOMETHING to cheer him up but I believe that sometimes the only way "around the pain is through the pain." I think it will just be a low key evening and he'll feel what he feels.
just checked on him. He's curled up on his bed asleep. I took a xanax to get my nerves still enough to talk with him and I feel like I could zonk out myself.
Sounds like intellectually he knows he can not drive anymore, but emotionally he is having to deal with it. Give it time and we will be hoping for the best of outcomes. I know it is hard to see them depressed about something we know would be hard to give up.
He got out of bed after less than an hour and went up and was watching the news. He agreed to go out to dinner so we had a very nice dinner at a nearby restaurant. We didn't talk about it. Our son called shortly after we got back. DH said "I'm too incoherent to talk right now." I know some seem so unaware of their condition but he frequently mentions being too "confused" or "unstable" or "confused." I'm trusting that he'll stick to his agreement and it won't be like when he "promised" to quit drinking. I put both our sets of keys away but he asked where his keys were. I had just had him get something out of the trunk. We use the key remotes to lock the car so I guess I'll trust him unless I have reason not to. It's better that he feels this was his decision too.
I'm so aware that this is a significant milestone in this journey. I'm exhausted just imagining what is to come.
Thanks to everyone. I couldn't have had this conversation with DH today if it hadn't been for the comments by so many on the driving threads on this site.
Although my DH quit driving over a year ago, when I told him I did not think he should drive anymore, this week we gave his car to our granddaughter. I held my breath as we had his signature notarized. He still referred to it as his car and anyone borrowing it had to ask for his permission. It went well, although, he did say to me that he could still drive my car. Since we had our conversation about driving, he has never tried to drive and never complained about not driving. He never asks me to drive him anywhere, as he has lost interest in going anywhere without me. We are together 24 hours a day, mostly in the same room. He does go to a day program once a week, which I hope to increase to 2 or 3 days soon. i starve for some alone time.
maryd, I understand what you meen about the 24/7 "togetherness" It means being alert every second, feeling responsible for absolutely everything. I just gave DH a brief test of following directions, going over something that involved answering the door, telling the delivery person to please place the trays on the counter just inside the door, then saying thank you and closing the door. I went over each step several times, but when the bell rang, he opened the door, grabbed the packages from the person and said good-bye. There were actually good reasons why I didn't want to take a chance on two large trays of cookies to get dropped on the floor, but mainly I wanted one final direction following test. I won't be doing any more of them, but it does make me wonder if the Namenda has done any good at all. There's been cognitive decline and delusions in recent months and I fear that we're dipping our toes into Step 6. Thank goodness there's no incontinence or grooming issues yet. Just me giving up hope that he's still able to help in small ways.
I took the coward's way out. He "lost" his keys and we couldn't find them. He had no idea that I had my keys to the trucks. When he ask for the keys to the car I told him we could not take a chance on him losing them because they were all we had. I cried over this for days. He looked and looked for his keys. I couldn't tell him because I was afraid he would get violent. I had to get in touch with all his mechanic buddies. Sure enough he called them but they told him they did not know what to do.
FayeBayelt I remember all too well how terrible I felt after hiding my husband's keys to the car. He tried house key and anything else to try to start the car. I felt like a rat.
So far DH hasn't mentioned the driving at all. I've had to be out of the house for a great part of the past couple days though. He definitely seems down, is doing much less. And he's given me two grocery lists already. He was the grocery shopper for our entire marriage. I can't stand the shopping but a small price to pay.