Joan, I know what you mean....and I too am finding it more difficult to "take one day at a time"; but we must continue to try. If we don't we will surely fall further down into that hole of sadness, and fear....or depression. I don't know the answer as to how we can be successful at this....wish I did! But I will continue taking my anti-depressant, and visiting this site and venting when I feel the need, because as difficult as it is to read about what some others are going through with their spouses, it is also comforting to know that I am not alone in what I am facing, and in what I will face. I guess this is what will get me through the days when my mind starts to race ahead; forcing me to worry and fear what is coming.
I don't tend to dwell on the "after" as much as I dwell on the "when". I remember at the beginning thinking it would only be a couple of years.....dah!!! 10 years later I am wondering if his rapid decline of late means that the end is near but then again it could be another 5 years. Will I make it through? The worse he gets the fast I want to process to be over. I love him but I know he would not want to live this way.
I feel the same way phil. Gord was absolutely horrified by how his mother changed and the person she became. I used to reassure him that it wouldn't happen to him because it was the stroke that changed her. Now, looking back, I believe she had Alzheimer's. I know he would not want to be what he has become.
I know exactly where you are coming from...darned if you do and darned if you don't. I really think at some point we have to sit back and really assess the situation as objectively as possible. It is so hard when we love our spouses, want them to be free of pain and other maladies. I am so sorry you have to be in a position to accelerate your dh's alz.
I have begun to take my dh's medical care very cautiously. He is 85 and I have seriously been praying that something other than alz. takes him away from me. Until this year he visited the urologist twice a year for a checkup because he had a radical prostectomy in 1994 due to cancer. These visits are now discontinued. He has a tendency towards anemia so he has been seeing a hematologist who wants to put him through colonoscopy and endoscopy. DH even refuses to take the iron supplements like he should. DH had a colonoscopy a year ago and it was fine. He has no trouble with his stomach. I am asking our pcp to oversee his anemia problems. I think all these medical problems are getting too confusing for dh not to mention the different doctors whom he forgets from one appointment to another. I am very adamant about dh not getting any more anesthetic that is absolutely necessary. Like you say, Joan, all these treatments, surgeries, procedures hasten the progression of alz. Who knows what the different mood-altering drugs do when taken for years?
We must think of "tomorrow". We are going to be faced with their care. There aren't too many of us who will be able to hire in-home care. We can't prepare for everything but I am sure dh would feel the same if our positions were reversed.
Joan - thanks for sharing your thoughts with everyone. It is still hard for me to even accept what is and my mind races ahead to what will be for him and for me. FD was diagnosed with Hodkins Lymphoma in 1983 and through periods of remission and then return of disease he has had chemo and surgeries, etc. The past few years he has taken an antibodies drug at intervals which has kept the disease at near remission but it is always there. His oncologist set up the appointment with the neurologist or there would have been resistance from FD, I'm sure. I'm wondering now with the vascular dementia diagnosis how often he will be taking the antibodies injections. He has an appointment next week with only blood work. Usually there are scans before he has the antibodies injections. I keep wondering with the coming new medical insurance will it approve these very expensive treatments in view of the new diagnosis. Although I'm sure that could never be admitted as the reason. He has lost several pounds since his last oncology appointment. This has happened before usually when the disease has recurred. So maybe I'm borrowing trouble and should only concentrate on the alz. and what it is doing to him (and me). Who can not look ahead and wonder what is coming. I keep reminding myself "I don't know what the future holds but I know who holds the future." That does help ---- sometimes.
It's not possible to get out of bed if I look ahead past the day that I am in. I always ask the question of myself. Am I depress or is my life depressing. If I stay in the moment "my life's depressing" ...... I know it, everyone that loves me know's it and so what to bad got to keep going ..............not a fair life but nothing about this is fair.
Shirley said: We must think of "tomorrow". We are going to be faced with their care. This exactly what I( learned when faced with DH's Mental Health Crisis in March 1988. I had come home from volunteering at school to a man preparing to commit suicide. The only things holding him back were the promise from his counselor to get him help and call me after lunch; and the fact he wasn't finished up doing some chores he knewI couldn't do---his way of leaving a note (Learning Disabilities made no actual note possible). I was in a fog of fear. We saw his Psychiatrist for the first time the next morning and returned home with aDx and meds and a reurn appointment in 2 weeks. At the end of the 2nd day of incapacitating fear-fog, I realized it was up to me to get a handle on our situation or we'd never make it. So I faced the worst potential future and plotted every single step to handling it--from finding him through the funeraland grief counnseling. And then I did it again--if our daughter(10) was the one to find him.
What I learned was that if I faced the problem down and made a plan, it gave me the co0nfidencxe to handle anything up to and including that horror. Knowing that made handling all the lesser stuff easier.
Since his Dx with VaD, I researched, I changed a Dr. when needed to have ones who support my decision that any testing will be event driven. Drs. had proposed he be released right from the Hospital to a NH. Itold them the best place fior him was at home, and if I could have help that's what I wanted for him. We've been doing that sinceSept. 2006. One of the hardest times I've had since then was wrestling with the reality that his VaD progression is causing changes that I can't deal with at home for him to be safe. Placement was out there ----way off as a possibility but not really considered. Having to change " The Plan" was really difficult.
The good part of doing this very hard evaluating and planning ways to handle things gives me the peace to handle today more easily. This is no stroll through the park, I'm on, but I'm not walking the InterState at 5 either.
I can't look ahead and don't want to. If I look ahead, I see a life without DH, or a life with DH being really bad. I don't want to think about either. If I look towards this evening, I see a pleasent evening (probably) with DH and I eating dinner together and watching some TV. may be soaking in the hot tub. I like this picture much better than the picture when I look ahead.
That's good, Mary. Look ahead, but only as far ahead as is comfortable and manageable for you. That is what I find works best for me too...which brings us back to taking "one day at a time".