Not a good day from the moment he got out of bed. Maybe the constant rain all day had something to do with it. Some days I think I'm more tolerant than others, but today wasn't one of those days. Sometimes I don't think I pay enough attention to him. We go places, but I really don't do things with him. I feel detached from him. Is that because I can't get over the hateful & hurtful things he (the disease) has said to me? There are times when he realizes how he treats me & he cries & says he's sorry & sometimes even when he cries I feel......nothing. So today I went in the bathroom & cried. Not a good cleansing cry, but I feel that will come soon. I just hope I am alone when it happens.
Elaine, I think it is the way to detach from them. Part of the process some of us use to convert to caregiver. And, even though you know it is the disease, that doesn't take the sting and pain of hurtful words. I have not gotten into any of that but I have detached. Tears are good.
So sorry, Elaine. Hope today is a better day. I find my attachment to dh waxes and wanes. Some days I hug him, run my hands through his hair (which he still loves) and feel for him, at other times he is just something I have to do.
You have stated exactly the way I feel about my husband. Some days it's so easy to handle him and other days I want to run screaming the other way. I hope to have more of the first...
Jeanette and Deb, I feel the same way. Some days I want to hug him too. Fortunately for me, right now the good days outweigh the bad. I hope it continues for awhile. I know things can change again at any time, but I won't even talk to the doctor about it when it does. I have permission to to give him a higher dose of medication and I won't hesitate like I did the last time. For me, today, I feel good; the other day I thought I was going to explode. Fortunately, I didn't, but I sure felt like it. What I try to do so my patience doesn't wear thin, is say to myself that tomorrow I'll feel better. Then I distance myself from him, if possible. Tomorrow usually IS better. What we're doing more now is talk about "the old days." I know that for most of you this is part of your life as well. It's something he truly enjoys, so, particularly at dinner, we talk about when we were younger. It's funny, though; he seems to want to talk about his life as a child with his mother than our life together, though he still remembers our early life when I prompt him. It is so scary, though, that he's having a harder time remembering the more important things, such as our daughters' birthdays. He can't even name the month they were born! Today, our youngest was here. Her birthday was yesterday, but when she asked him what the date of her birthday is, he couldn't remember. I'm finding this so sad.
Bev, it sounds like you talk more to your DH than I do mine. It drives me crazy when he tries to remember people & places & expects me to play the guessing game of who or what he is talking about. Or we will be driving by someplace & he goes into this long tirade about how he's been there & he & his friends have had a meal there etc,etc, & it just about drives me crazy. I wish I had more patience to just listen to him. I tried really hard today, but it was still grating on my nerves.
Patience is something I am learning and lets just say I am not a fast learner. The guessing game will pass and when it does, I hate to tell you that it will be replaced with soemthing else. I HATE this disease. I hate how it has changed my husband and I hate how it is changing me. I feel angry most days. It is a constant battle. His mother does not seem to accept it and tells me to look for the good. Our two adult children are not even speaking to us. His sister is too busy to come by. Thank God my 84 year old mother has come to stay for the winter. SHe has been an amazing help and she just can't believe that the rest of the family can't see he is failing. When they do come to visit, they talk about old times, which they have always done. Yes he can remember those days. They don't see the arguement every night to take off his clothes to go to bed. They don't see me shaving him, running his shower dressing him. They don't see him sundowing, pacing, following me constantly, etc.... Yes , I needed to vent.
Before "The Disease," I have to say I hardly ever looked back, always lived for the day and the future. When my husband talked about those past days, I listened but I can't say we really talked about them much. I always felt, "Why look back?" Now, sinced we've been talking so much about the long ago past, I've spent some time myself looking over what my life has been like and it's been a good one,all in all. I think about what I did when I was a young girl and I'm pretty proud of how I led my life, especially when you see some of the young people of today who can't make it on their own. We never had a lot of money but we never wanted for anything, and we've raised chldren we're very proud of. So, the time we spend talking to each other about "the olden days" has made me look back when I thought it was better to live the now and look to the future, and it is. But, looking back can be good too. Oh, there are times when I might get a little impatient with him, like when he's talking about the same thing we talked about the night before, but I really am trying to really listen to him. The day when he isn't here probably isn't that far off......
My DH has always talked about the past. But most of it was when he was a kid. And as the years went by, still talked about the past as a kid. Never talked about us or what we did or our kids. We have been marred 30 years. When I would try to talk about our past it always went back to his past as a kid. Odd. The other day we were out running around paying bills and such, I started talking about something that happened at work. DH did not say anything. About a half hour later he started talking about what I was talking about the half hour earlier! Some days he can talk and some days he keeps to himself. Thank goodness I have you all, so I don't feel so alone. Bev, I have always been like you, not looking back. But all in all my life has been good. The past few years were hard. But once the dx was made, it all became clear for me. The anger my DH had towards me is gone.
Today, something very wierd happened to me. I was in the cosmetics area of a department store......I walked by a display of John's favorite cologne, "Grey Flannel" and another, "Bay Rhum". For a fleeting moment, I thought I should buy some for him...........then, remembered, "never mind. He's not here anymore". Sooooo strange. No, I didn't even want to smell it even though the urge was SO enormous! Yep, had to fight back the depression and the tears once more. Even after all that's gone on, I still have my tender-heart moments. Strange.
My mother, who I was very close to, died 2-1/2 years ago; I still think that way when I see a movie I think she would like or a show on TV. I miss her. I can imagine what it'll be like when my husband dies.
Blue, I never really thought about it before, but now that I do, I realize that some of the bad times that happened between the two of us before his diagnosis were because of this disease, and I'm finding that it's easier to accept what is happening with him now when I realize that he had little control of his actions.
Bev, your post struck a chord with me tonight. Have just been crying on a friend's shoulder, explaining how the realization that the destruction of our marriage was largely rooted in DH's early dementia symptoms and what sadness and grief that causes me. He could not help many of his actions and I had no crystal ball to explain what was going on. My anger towards him is rightly moving towards the disease now. I have so much healing to do...
I have also found myself stopping to look at a pretty shirt my DH would have liked, or some bakery goodie he would have liked,..and then I remember, he's not here. It will be a year on November 17th ...I wonder if those moments will eventually fade away. Weejun, I, too, suffered such angst years ago when my DH was so mean, embarrassed me to death in public, always criticizing me in front of friends and families, and I lost so much of 'that special feeling' we had between us before. I adored him in the beginning of our late life romance and marriage, and loved him until the day he died, but that 'magic' was irreparably flawed after years of verbal abuse. I realized later that it was the disease, but that didnt' repair the emotional damage completely. I'd already built a little wall between us to protect my own mental health. Nancy B*
I think that's why it's important, as Joan has said, that an early diagnosis is made so that medication can be started, planning done, and, as Weejun says, a better understanding reached by the spouse. After being on this site, I, too, think that was so horrible in our marriage when he was about 80, was due to the disease. I remember that our family doctor dismissed my concerns, and even after I went to a geriatrist (without FP's referral) and got tests, CAT scan,examination and diagnosis of probable Alzheimer's Disease, the FP blocked my request to the Community Health Care Centre for a case worker by saying that "Mr. X. is as right as rain." Later, FP denied saying this, but it had been documented. All of this delayed
Our previous PCP, no matter how hard I tried to tell him something was wrong, never really listened to me. For years, I knew something was not quite right. Each time we went to the doctor I would talk to our doctor alone, telling him I thought he was depressed. Then, he would see my DH and, of course, DH talked to the doctor and they would joke around. The dr. would ask him the kind of questions that might suggest a depression (which was what I thought was wrong) and DH he answered every one of them correctly. So, things would just continue until the next time we saw him and it would start all over again. The dr. just wouldn't listen to me. Eventually we found a new dr. for him, who, after my prompting, eventually did some testing and the rest is history.
So, treatment was delayed. I often think of how things might be different if he had listened to me earlier.
Good grief, Bev, are you sure you don't live in my city and didn't take your husband to my husband's former doctor??? Exactly. I kept hauling DH around to various doctors, repeatedly to the same (ineffective as it turned out) neurologist, telling them something was wrong, I thought he was depressed, etc. And, yes, DH would laugh and joke around with the doc, especially the neuro. This went on for ages until after I moved out, filed for divorce, we reconciled, and then whammo I realized dementia might be the elephant in the room, found a new neurologist, got some neuropsych testing, and voila, a diagnosis. By then the marriage was shot, things were on a huge downhill slide and here I sit, DH placed, my mental health shot to #%##, physical health nearly as bad, trying desperately to drag myself out of this deep, dark hole. I pray for us all.
I guess I was very fortunate when I made an appointment with our family doctor for DH's memory. He immediately had his nurse make an appointment with a neuro. Although that one didn't work out! I asked our doctor if the neuro knew anything about Alz and he said he should he's a neurologist. I told him I wasn't impressed with him and he had his nurse make an appointment with a different neuro. This one is a keeper! Before I had a clue about Alz. DH was a huge pain in a@#! Angry and threatening, and like many here I thought seriously about divorce. Now I know it was the disease making him that way it still doesn't make the things he said easier to take. It just makes it a little easier to understand but you/I can't forget the way he was and how much I disliked him for the things he did say and how threatening he was. I will take care of him to the best of my ability but I am just not sure how much love is still there and how much is because there is no one else to take care of him.