What does that mean? How does such a statement bring comfort? I know that this is what they wanted to do,but I do not see how such a comment could do that. I saw a movie about an idiot and thought of you too!
No, Bob....the statement refers to the fact that the James Garner character, the loving husband, took such wonderful care of his wife through the horrors of Alzheimer's, and it reminds them of you....it is a compliment!
I think they were trying to tell you that by watching the movie they saw the pain you were going through and the loyal husband that you are. As for me I watched the movie a couple of nights ago and will never watch it again. The last part hit to close to home and I became very upset.
I guess if I had seen the movie I might have been so self absorbed that I would take that as a compliment. I do not understand why not say what they think and not leave it to me to figure out. I will do my best and I struggle like everyone here with the issues this disease inflicts on the marriage.
moorsb, In your last sentence you state I struggle like everyone here with the issues this disease inflicts on the marriage. This is what the James Garner character was doing. He read from the notebook about their early years hoping she would remember and somtimes she did. He never gave up on her even when their children did. They could not understand why he kept hanging in there . I think this is the part of the movie that your friend was referring to.
Today I saw in the paper a paragraph about "The Notebook". I have just reserved it from the local library. Especially interesting to me because Gena Rowlands was in my high school graduating class.
I am not sure if this is where Moorsb is coming from but... I didn't like "The Notebook". In spite of the attempt to present James Garner's character as loving and devoted the movie trivialized the affect the disease has on the patient and painted a totally unrealistic picture of what end of life is like. She was wearing pearls and makeup and behaving utterly normal, save the fact that she didn't know him, right up until the day she died. In fact... that scene in her bedroom where she "snaps out of it" and has a perfectly normal conversation with him as if AD is a place you go and return from periodically to check in... made me want to throw something at the TV. The whole thing was a travesty. She was a bit plump for an AD patient too..... I have never seen an AD patient in the last stages of the disease with a pound to spare.
Thunder, my husband was definitely not emaciated when he died after suffering for 8 years with AD. He weighed about 175, 20 pounds less than his normal weight. - and, even the last month, there were times when it would appear he had brief moments of rationality. He never lost his ability to speak, even though he had difficulty expressing what he wanted to say most of the time. I remember the times - even in the last month - that he'd reach for my hand, smile his little sideway smile, tilt his head to the side, and say, "You know I love you, don't you?" ....and then he'd drift back into his blank world.
I now chose to focus on those moments and let the horrible - hurtful - miserable - moments fade far back into the dark areas of my memory. Maybe someday, God willing, they will simply go away completely.
Sharon's current condition can only be described as a waking coma. She is like a mannequin that breathes. She has declined so much in just the last few days that I fear she may only have a few days left.
Sad, Thunder.. I agree with Nancy though that there are times when they are lucid. Not often, but it's always disconcerting. And some of it does have to do with meds - is your wife on enough to zonk her out? One day our CNA and I both (by accident) gave my husband a Tramadol, about 2 hours apart. For the rest of the day he was completely out of it - whereas ONE didn't seem to do much at all.
Thunder, I agree with you....I didn't care for the movie either, but I did like the book. If I remember forrectly it told more about the progression of the disease & since you have to use your mind's eye when you read I could visualize the reality of it more. I read it shortly after my DH's dx of early dementia not realizing that he would progress or digress. I wonder how they wold change the story if they made a movie of "Still Alice."
Same here as Nancy. My husband retained his almost normal weight and eating habits. 10 days before he died I was taking him in the car and through the McDonalds Drive-thru for Iced coffee - one of his favorite things to do. He wanted to stop at the Fire Department to purchase his favorite chocolate covered peanuts on the first day they were open for their Candy Sales. He also walked inside with my help. Hospice had signed him on 3 days earlier, reluctantly. He never ate a bite of the candy and the next day he took his last bite of chocolate ice cream and sip of water. 9 days later he passed. Nobody was more shocked than the Hospice team.
I enjoyed the movie but never read the book. Every Dementia Patient is different.
The "lucid moment" seems to be becoming a cliche in books and movies about AD patients. (Haven't seen "The Notebook" but have seen it in "Away from her" and others.
I would give a lot for one of those lucid moments. Dh has never had one.
Jeanette, my husband did experience a few of those lucid moments and I wish he hadn't.....once he begged me to kill him and another he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "this is a hell of a way to live."
My DH has lost over 20 kgms.He used to weigh 98 ks., now down to 72kgs - I put it down to the Alz disease, as in my working as a nurse I never saw a fat Alz. patient. It is very difficult to think of something DH would like as a gift, as he never had a hobbie as such. He was a sailor,race goer,card player and caravanner, now with those things gone and he not to the stage of fluffy toys, it is hard to think of what to get. Still hard to get him to sleep at night even with his music playing, I've had to resort to his meds. a few times which I don't like doing, but I guess it doesn't matter if he gets hooked at this stage of the journey.
Well, Sylvia, my dh has gained some weight due to obsessive eating and is developing a belly that makes his pants hard to button. I'm having trouble getting those elastic band pants from Penny's, they have put them on back order again. I tried to get them a couple months back and the same thing happened, the order finally got cancelled. But the pants are still on the website so I tried again. I can't get elastic waist pants anywhere here (except for jogging type) Another reason he has gained weight is lack of exercise since he is no longer bicycling.
JeanetteB you also state in your profile that your DH is in stage 5-6. As the stages go that is pretty early on. My original statement was that I had never seen an AD patient in the final stages (meaning last days of life) with a pound to spare. When Sharon was in stage 5-6 she ate more than I did. When she died I could literally pick her up with one hand. There are also a lot of people on this forum whose spouses do not have AD. All dementias are not the same. Someone with FTD or VD will not progress/decline the same as an AD patient.
My reason for bringing it up in the first place was because I felt (and still feel) that the movie painted an utterly unrealistic picture of the disease. In fact if I knew nothing of AD and I saw that movie... I would walk away thinking "Gee, that's not so bad". Even the facility she was in resembled a villa on the French Riviera more than even the nicest NH I've ever seen. Complete nonsense. Literary license not withstanding, the narrative part of the movie was a quaint love story but the rest was an abject disservice.
Some AD patients don't get to stage 7 at all. Some have an "event" even at stage 6 or late stage 5 that sends them into a tailspin and death within 10 days. Those don't lose weight. Most of the weight loss at first is the loss of muscle mass. My husband ate whatever he wanted for a couple of years and put on over 40 pounds, most around the belly. Well, that spare tire is gone and he's now below the weight he was when diagnosed. Yet he isn't skin and bones.
I know some of our spouses who are now widows here whose husbands did not get to the skin and bones stage either.
I haven't read "The Notebook" but I saw the movie. And it did a wonderful thing for me. As I was making scrapbooks of our last two trips (at my husband's insistence that I complete them quickly - now I know why - he could read and see the photos and remember the trips!), I decided to make a list of our trips. Then I went back to when we were married and listed the places we lived and trips we took back then, and then it hit me - I should tell the story of our lives so that he could read and remember it longer, like in "The Notebook"!!!
Well, I worked at it, starting from our births, through our schooling, our meeting, engagement, marriage, and places we lived, children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Then the kids read it and asked that I add our pets, so I did. Then I tossed in a few pictures, and put it in a three ring binder in plastic sleeves so he could read it. For over a year, he looked at it almost daily, along with the scrapbooks. I had them lining the edge of the dining room table.
When he got to where he couldn't read any more, I made a notebook of the professional family photos, and he looked at that for another year - daily.
Now, he couldn't hold it, can't remember anyone, doesn't seem to be aware of anything except when you say here is breakfast (or lunch, or dinner or a snack) and he'll open his mouth, bite and chew.....
I now open the scrapbooks and our "notebook" and remember the good times.....
I saw The Notebook on the Oxygen channel last night again. Apart from the wonderful story that was being told to the wife who has ALZ, there was another message in the picture that was not dominant but there nonetheless. The mother of her children and grandchildren didn't know them and then the children tried to convince their father that he should just come home ( where is home for him?) since their mother/his wife does not know they ANYWAY.. What is this supposed to show? That the mother now is a throw away or that since she doesn't know them they should now just move on not thinking that even a visit might give her a happy day somehow? Is that those children's way for grieving?
We all face this, either we find our LO and ourselves in the bargain are throwaways or maybe not worth the time and effort since the LO doesn't know them or are we to give them the benefit of the doubt and say this is their way of dealing with the loss?
My FIL, after a 25 year battle with AD, did not get thin. After all that was said on here, when we went to view him I expected to see a skinny guy but he was not. And it was not the mortician making him look fatter, he just did not loose. weight. I guess until the last month he still had a good appetite even with soft food.