When you first began this journey did you find family members questioning if this was really true? Our sons seem to want to think this is just from the mini-strokes he's had. Family members out of state who don't see him question if it is just blood clots? Maybe dementia, not alzheimers. Either is not a choice for me right now but I guess they think it will help me. Whatever it is he is not the same and I am struggling - not coping well. Friends have already backed off and he is still capable of doing most things he has always done. But then he sometimes thinks there is someone else in our house and he can hear them walking down the hall - if he comes in from outside and can't find me right away (it isn't a big house) he says I'm hiding from him. If they were here with us all the time they'd see I'm not imagining things. In a few weeks we will attend his army reunion and I'm wondering how all his old buddies will be. They are a great group and we've been meeting yearly for over 15 years. These are Korean War era vets so all up there in years. I've told them that he has some health problems but we will be there. One or two of our close friends in the group know the diagnosis has not been confirmed but is probably true. I just wanted them to know he is not the same.
Yes, Flo, there has been denial from some for years. I have to admit even I had denial. Because we are approximately the same age as you, I wanted to think all of this was age-related. Like you there is no official diagnosis that it is AD but my gut tells me otherwise as well as most of my family. My one daughter does have reservations. His doctor told me he will sign anything I bring him. Time will prove it is AD. He can't remember anything of our married life (56 years) but does remember things of his childhood. I go through the paranoia also. "Someone is cutting the flowers from the top" In reality the animals including deer are eating his flowers. The tools in the basement are not his, says I have been putting my stuff in his toolbox. My dh follows me around or searches if he can't find me. I can still leave him for 3 or 4 hours tops and I really cherish that time away but it is only twice a week. He has a reunion coming up in Sept. and I am not sure if he will go. No wives attend so I don't want to be the only one. I am sure one of his friends will be glad to pick him up. He won't recognize most of them, let alone carry on a normal conversation. Just can't express himself well. Hang in there. We are all here to help you.
Yes, all the time. At least one of them still wants it to be something else (like Lyme disease) so much that he sends me links once in a while. When I first started saying something was wrong, people close to me did question whether my imagination was getting overly active. Only that one brother of my husband's questions now.
Actually, come to think of it, the reason it took us almost 3 years to get a diagnosis was that even two neurologists and a psychiatrist wanted it to be something else and never steered us to the PET scan and neuropsych testing.
Emily...sorry to hear about your DH, but this is just so typical. Even now, after 5 or 6 years and my dh is probably in stage 6 people we knew, but didn't see often (they call sometimes) want to think he is really ok and it probably is something else. I just don't discuss his condition with most people any more. In fact, if I had it to do over again (and Thank God I won't have it to do over again). I would lie and tell others he has vascular dementia or something like that. The general public has not accepted alzheimers as a condition that is "acceptable". Sad to say, but true.
No denial by family or friends here. Hb has vascular dementia; behaviors not unlike Alzheimer's. It is stressful to the max for me having to keep an eye on him all the time, doors, cabinets, fridge locked. Knick knacks put away. When we go out, I'm tense because I have to keep him with me all the time, and sometimes he gets ugly. BUT, we don't have it so bad as many of you; so I feel like a wimp when I read your posts.
Flo - Yes, no one wants to accept AD, I know I was in denial for a long time and everone said, 'He seems OK to me.' They'd send me things they'd read, give him magazine subscriptions, tickets to plays, thinking he just needed something--stimulation, I guess. They all meant well and mostly I'd just let things be, but finally there did come the day when I had to just give some of them a good talk. Fortunately I had one brother-in-law who had been a therapist and came to my side. It's just part of the process, quite normal really, so let it go if you can. Don't make a federal case out of people who care but just can't always deal with what's happening.
I wonder if the Korean reunion is the same one that found my DH years ago, but he was already too far gone into AD to participate. I have, however, kept in touch w/some of the men, but I also get emails from time to time that some are gone, and sometimes AD or the like is involved.
The problem in our family was trying to differentiate dementia from bad behavior. My son had a big problem with his dad being able to turn bad behavior off and on to serve his needs. That was a part of early FTD but at that point all we knew about FTD is that it was a floral delivery service. I wonder how many couple divorce because they don't understand bad behavior as a symptom of dementia. If those living close by don't understand what is going on how can we expect distant family to?
One of his sisters had alzheimers and another had dementia. I also always thought his mother had dementia although that was never mentioned. There are two other sisters and one brother who have no problems mentally at all. When I spoke to his brother last week he mentioned the alzheimers sister who lingered in a NH for years because her son insisted on a feeding tube. He said it was so terrible. There are only two brothers and they are very close. I think he just can't think that FD will end up that way. Neither can I.
flo39, Yes, denial is a problem. In the grand scheme of things, VaD, dementia or AD...the result is the same. My DH is in Stage 7, but in the early years (he has had it 11 years, DX 9 years ago) I got so tired of the comments like "he seems fine to me!" that I put a sign up. The sign is still over my kitchen sink that reads, "Thou shall not Whine". I felt so many people thought I was whinning. But when you LIVE it 24/7 ...you know the truth. Hang on.