Has anyone felt like their head was going to explode and you want to scream and cry at the same time?
I know my husband can't help it but his constant pacing, asking for a cigarette and if he can vacuum is really getting to me tonight. I give him a cigarette about every 2 hours (otherwise he would smoke one after another--bad for him and our finances) and as soon as he is done with one he asks for another. Then for the next couple of hours he wanders around the house trying to find where I keep the cigarettes, asking for one/or telling me the time he will have his next one. On top of that, whenever he sees a little piece of lint on the carpet he wants to vacuum. He vacuumed today as soon as he got home from day care and now wants to do it again. He has vacuumed as many as 4-5 times in one day.
I wish he would shower as often as he wants to smoke or vacuum. Every morning he will tell me to take a shower, and if I say, "you go first", he just says "NO".
I am "screaming loudly in my head" more and more often. Sometimes, like today after I hung up from an aggravating telephone call with my husband, I scream out loud - that feels much better! Sometimes you just got to do it out loud.
I have an idea. Can you find one of those push non-electric floor sweepers. They are silent, and similar to what restaurants use between dining guests. My grandchildren loved to push those around when helping me clean. You cannot explain that too frequent vaccuming is bad for carpets..because he wouldn't get it with his reason button broken, and all of that!! So my suggestion is a new Huffy push sweeper. It's worth a try.
My wife paces from morning till night and has to be tied to a chair to eat... I feel your pain. We are going to the doctor tomorrow to get us some drugs. I am ready to jump out a window.
Nancy B, I have a non-electric Bissell carpet sweeper. He doesn't like it. Bruce insists it doesn't do anything.
----------------------------------------- Charlotte, I thought of an electronic cigarette but there is no way he would understand how to use it. He would probably try to light it and it would never be out of his hand. They aren't cheap either. I did quite a bit of research on them. If he was earlier in the disease, it might have worked.
------------------------------------------- Thunder, my husband is on seroquel and it has calmed him a bit. He will at least sit for a little while. Before the med he never sat down. He will occasionally eat while walking around, which makes more crumbs that he in turn needs to vacuum.
----------------------------------------- I think part of what makes it worse is that he doesn't communicate well. He answers "okay, okay" or "sorry, sorry" to pretty much everything as he continues to do what he wants.
deb and all the rest of us sufferers: I can relate to what you are saying except my DW was pacing and doing the laundry. I only needed two pair of socks because she would run a whole load of wash if I put one pair in the laundry. She was using an awful amount of laundry detergent each time she washed also and I learned that that stuff is expensive also.
Went the drug route (seroquel, etc.) and it helped, but, the disease won and she doesn't remember anything about any of it. And the sad part is that she doesn't even worry whether her clothes are clean or not.
It is Monday evening and DH has gone to bed..so has bil. Had a reasonably good day. Bil took him to the doctor this afternoon and I got my window cleaned and the kitchen counter ( it is ceaser stone) all polished and my Franke sink polished and part of the kitchen looks nice and I feel like I got something done for a change. Tomorrow Bil takes him in the morning to the cardiologist for his INR and then out to lunch at the Red Lobster..Bil asked if I was going to meet them or should they come to get me and I said no this is their time to bond as brothers.To which Bil said..you mean you are going to stay home and work? I said yes I want to do the things I have wanted to deal with and this gives me a chance to have a normal uninterrupted day to do them. I noted hubby has been a bit grumpy and not sure why. The two of them went on a walk and Dhgot a little breathless and said his hips hurt( told his brother). I hope this is not something that develops into a major problem as he has had both hips replaced. Maybe the discomfort he won't tel me about is what is bothering me. Then tonight at dinner ( we went out) I mentioned that my cousin who is a photographer was accepted at Getty Images..she submitted her portfolio last Aug and go the news today. I was telling her how photography theft is a big deal on the internet and that is why I do not post m y work...I may as well have been spitting in the wind..I was completely ignored. It was like I was not even at the table. Is that moon getting full or something???
It must be the season for this obsessive behavior. My DH has a stack of Reader's Digest that he keeps shuffling. He is saving them to give to the church where he goes to a 'senior enrichment program' for the 'kids'. I am not sure who the 'kids' are, Maybe they are the other seniors in his program. Then, he found some Time magazines to take also. He gets upset with me if I question how they will be used. He got upset with me for giving him a dark shirt to wear on Sunday. He got upset with me when he told me his shoes hurt and I said I don't know what to do. I just bought them for him in late June and spent $140. I really don't know what to do. He has many, many shoes, some almost brand new. I am supposed to fix everything and it is so tiring. He used to sleep all the time, but now he seems to complain all the time.
We are having the same shoe problem. Just got DH two new pairs of shoes, because the old ones hurt his feet. Guess what, he is still using the old ones. The new ones are still in the closet. What to do......
G was driving me more than a little nutso with the constant pacing and nitpicking...hospice arrived and upped his Seroquel and added trazadone at bedtime...HUGE improvement! He can actually sit still for quite a long time(for him!). Go for the drugs! Isn't that a sad commentary?
Dean, my DH did the VERY SAME laundry thing. Washed a few items & used LOTS of liquid laundry soap. Thank goodness he isn't interested in doing laundry anymore. Maryd & blue, my DH has the shoe problem also. A few months ago he started complaining about shoes he has worn for months so I bought him a nice pair at Goodwill which he wore for a while & then I went to Walmart & bought him a pair with velcro instead of laces & they seem to be OK (for now!) I have a good one for you all.....we discussed the constant shaving problem on another thread a while back. Well not only does my DH carry disposable razors in his pockets, but he sits on the couch & constantly dry shaves. Well this morning while he was in bed (he slept past 10am, which is very unusual for him....but that is another story!) anyway I decided it was time to move the couch & get the dust out & whatever else was under there. Besides his car keys (which he NEVER uses & which I have been looking for the past few weeks) I found (no exageration!) at least 20 disposable razors! He uses them & then hides them in the cushions & they fall through to the floor. OMG! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
I hate the drugs. I took my wife off Lipitor and she got noticeably less fuzzy. I put her back on at the end of the summer and she noticeably zombied. I messed up with the anti depressants at the start of a long weekend where we were at a cottage and on the third day she finally cried a little and felt sorry about what she couldn't do. Hasn't shown an emotion since or before. Been on them almost three years. For two cents I'd take her off all of them (Ebixa) and wait until we really need something like what's mentioned above. I imagine Seroquel and numerous others mentioned are in my future.
I have never heard my wife say she is dying or has AD. It gets so weird to envy moorsb but the truth is I would give a lot to hear her remind me of any truth or say anything that really makes sense and sounds like 'her'.
This morning I slept in because my wife has taken to getting up really early having to go to the bathroom and I have to get there when she does or accidents will happen and this morning I could hear the garbage truck and realized I hadn't put it out and racing around getting it together at every moment she was following me right in the way and the bag wouldn't open and I had to dress quickly then and just made it and walking back upstairs I said to myself stay patient and immediately caught my bad toe in the carpet and turned it competely back on itself. I swear things are going wrong that never did and things happen that are hard to even accept like hooking my shirt sleeve in the coffee carafe in the kitchen I've cooked in for 4 years and sending the carafe onto the floor smashing it and covering it with coffee everywhere. If anything can remotely possibly go wrong now - it will.
I know what it is. I am off. My movements when I do things aren't normal even though I think they are. I am hurrying or paying less attention or something. Because I'm under constant stress. That's the explanation but knowing it isn't changing anything.
Does anyone know if there's a pill for instant Zen? That I would take.
The truth is I read here partly to hear the terrible things facing me before they actually happen thinking that might help. I realize I'm lucky we still sleep in the same bed. And while we have our own horrors of weirdness, I'm not facing some of the things some of you are. I feel for you. I worry how I will do.
It's an extremely odd thing to see that I've moved from thinking of being alone with suicidal thoughts to feeling some longing inside that this will all be over. From being overcome that this has happened to her to resenting that she is like this. What am I supposed to think about that? That I'm a human being who's feelings matter as much as anyone else's? Ha! I can't afford that.
Wolf K, I understand how you feel. I keep wondering if things will ever be normal for me. Will I ever be able to think of something that would be for me alone. The stress is terrible. I don't want to do anything because if I went out to eat or a movie, it would involve taking DH and that would ruin it. I went to a support group yesterday and made the mistake of telling DH where I had gone. He thought he should have have gone also. We go to a support group for people with AD. The caregivers attend too, but the attention is on the AD person. He rarely has anything to say. He likes going and talks about going all month, but, when the time comes he can't remember anything he has done and can' contribute much.. I wonder if I will have the stamina for what is to come.
While it helps to have a plan for the future a lot of energy can be wasted worrying about behavior that may never occur. I tried to live in the present and hope for the best. Didn't work out for me-but at least I gave it my best.
Deb, I can't even imagine how I would react to what you're going through. The repetitive behavior your DH is exhibiting would be extremely stressful. Fortunately for me, I'm not yet going through this. But, and it's a big but, I had been going through screaming at me, extreme anger towards me, and other things that really scared me. On the advice of our doctors, I upped his Seroquel. You cannot even begin to imagine how that saved us. He is more like his old self (except that his memory is getting worse and worse), but I can live well with him. He's even begun to want to go out more, whereas before he wouldn't leave the house. The only caveat to this is that he wants to go everywhere I go, even to the hairdresser! Deb, please think about asking your doctor about more Seroquel. It, so far, has been a lifesaver for us. I know it won't be forever. The last time it was raised lasted about 10 months, but that is okay with me.
Bluedaze made a good point. Get a plan of some sort in place for the future but don't dwell on it too much. Wasted energy and some of the things happing with other patients may never happen to you. Investigate a place for Placement, if that need should occur and sometimes it can occur overnight. Write both your and your spouses Obituaries and make plans now for final arrangements - decide on a Funeral Home and I went in and chose everything a year ahead of when I needed it and left them a copy of both our Obituaries. It is a "given" that we all are going to die sometime and I chose to do this so my kids wouldn't have to do it. What if I had died before he did. It can happen. I only had to update things a couple times a year. My husband did not have many of the difficulties you all are talking about having - but he had other difficulties. He did not have incontinence for instance but he required more and more help. I had to dress him and put his shoes on him. If he had incontinence, I knew I would almost certainly have to place him because I could not handle him with changing a depends - or was pretty sure I could not. Now, I observed Mary doing it so maybe, had the occasion occurred, I could have done it. Like others have reported - when faced with the reality - we do what needs to be done, be it placement or choosing home care. None of us should feel "guilty" about placement.
Thanks everyone for your comments. Today has been a better day--he is still pacing and asking for his cigarettes but I seem to be handling it better. It was a beautiful day here so we went to the zoo (free day ☺) and I enjoyed being out with other people even though they were strangers. Tomorrow is a day care day and I will be going to lunch with my mom and dad, so I have some quiet time to look forward to.
If it makes anyone feel any better, I STILL go out to the middle of a pasture aand scream. Or lie down out there and and have a fit till there's no more left. I feel better, although wonder if I'm "stable".
If you have to wonder if you are stable then you are..same as wondering if we are losing our minds..if we are aware I'd say we are ok..our file drawers are just too full to overflowing. You deserve some time to kick a and scream...