Besides my New Year's Blog, this is my first blog of the new year. It discusses some important changes I hope to make in my life this year. I Invite you to log onto the home page - www.thealzheimerspouse.com - and read it. It will seem impossible to those of you at the beginning of this journey. But to those of us much farther along, I think you will understand the steps I have chosen to take. Please post comments here.
Exellent blog. I definitely related to it and wish you the best. Your wisdom and insights are what started "thealzheimerspouse" and have kept it relevant. Now that I'm not in the "battlefield," decisions and relationships are affected by some of the decisions I made back "then."
True words and anyone who wants to know what it is like, should read that.
My heart goes out to you Joan, it really does. When the day comes when Sid is no longer home, you will make it Joan, we are here for you. I know you will be ok....but it will be hard. And you are getting ready for that road ahead, so smart.
I HAVE NOT COME THAT FAR IN MY JOURNEY THAT I COULD EVEN CONCEIVE TO DO WHAT YOU ARE DOING, BUT WITH THAT SAID, I DO UNDERSTAND IT AND hOPE i HAVE THE COURAGE TO DO THAT WHEN THE TIME COMES. I HAVE BEEN AT IT SEVEN YRS NOW SINCE DIAGNOSIS. MY HUSBAND WAS VERY HEALTHY WHEN THIS STARTED BUT THINGS ARE STATING TO SHOW UP/ HE IS ABLE TO DO ADLS WITH PROMPTING, BUT THE PAST COUPLE OF WEEKS I HAVE SEEN SOME INCONTINENCE AND I DONT LOOK FORWARD TO THE NEXT STAGE OF THE GAME. WE EACH HAVE OUR OWN LIMIT, AND OUR OWN HEALTH ISSUES, FINANCIAL ISSUES, AND OUR OWN MORALITY SCALE TO DEAL WITH TO COME TO THIS DECISION. LIKE I SAID I DO UNDERSTAND, AND GOD BLESS YOU!1!!
Joan...that is exaclty how I'm feeling. My word for this year is "Focus"...on getting a life for me. Just about everywhere you go it's all couples, it never hit home as much as it has lately for me. I miss all the things you wrote about...the man I fell inlove with 50 years ago I have cried rivers, walked around the house crying and talking to myself...I can't do that anymore, I'm beaten down by the tears and grief. Time to get myself together....it is what it is and nothing is going to change it. it was so sad seeing him that way yesterday...I prayed to god to take him, as I walked away....please forgive if I upset anyone, but he is suffering locked up in AD...that's how I was feeling. sorry..here comes the tears again...
Joan, I don't know how to express this that it makes sense, but here goes. For me, since I placed Tom in the Veteran's home, it is actually easier to focus on myself & realize that I have to go on as a single. As you so well stated, while they are home & you are doing EVERYTHING for them & taking care of EVERYTHING else it is hard to focus on doing things for & by myself. I couldn't even imagine going someplace without him. I couldn't leave him alone for the past 2 years so unless someone came & sat with him or took him out to lunch I was with him 24/7. However now that I am not the 24/7 caregiver I have the time to do things for myself. I still go & visit him almost everyday because I still do love him & want to see him, but I also know that I need to do things for myself & I am starting to do that.
Julia, I can so relate. I have cried a river too. I also wish that a heart attack or something else quick would take him. I KNOW that he would be in heaven, whole again & he would be happy! He wouldn't want to live this way. If we didn't live half a world away from each other I'd come over & have a cup of tea (or coffee) with you!
Elaine, that would ne nice...we could have a good cry together, then inspire each other to go on making a life for ourselves. Family, friends say it's all about me now...I find that so hard to come to terms with,
DGD is getting married on Friday, the wedding is over an hours drive away, a garden wedding late in the afternoon...then onto her dad's place. She is so upset Grand dad won't be there to see her and have photos taken with them. This unbearable heat we're having here...I think it would be too much for him.
My major problem with this "moving on" is that I don't know what I want to do with the rest of my life. One day I think I want to move into a mobile home park for people 55 and older. Just about the time I feel comfortable with that I think....nooo...that's not for me. Then I think I will move into a condo and just about the time I get comfortable with that...I think....noooo...that's not for me.
I like being around people, but being a joiner has never had much appeal to me. Wish there was a place around here that was for people 55 years and older to live in their own little homes, condos or apts. Seems like Arizona and Florida are the places to go for that type of living. I live in Calif. and one would have to go to the desert area (I hate the heat) in order to find those type of places.
This must mean I am not ready to make a move/decision so I will continue on being a loner until I figure this out.
Very good blog, Joan. I feel like I have been in the single category for a while even tho my husband has only been diagnosed since 2008. There was a blog on getting emotionally divorced and for me that has helped. I am going to look at an assisted living today--hopefully where I will place him. He begs me not to so I decided I am saying no more to him until I actually place him. I still think I can reason with him I guess because I have been doing that for 40 years but alas I realize I can reason with him no longer. He will never understand my reasons for doing things. My children are all on board with this decision and have agreed to accompany me to the assisted living when I place him. I want more than anything to get on with my life. I have felt like I was stuck in the mud for far too long. The other thing is I am hoping that when I am not watching him 24/7 that I can become a more compassionate person. the truth of the matter is that I am angry and irritable a lot of the time and he does not deserve that. All total he has been sick for 10 years--since 2003 when he had his first surgery. I have to count that time also even tho the Alz was only diagnosed in 2008. I still have to apply for Medicaid and then my focus has to be on earning some more money since that will pretty much take everything. I have my house tho and my car and wonderful friends and family. I am focusing on what I can be grateful for. My best to you as you start your single life. It really is not so bad--it is just different.
Dear Joan and everyone. As I have mentioned recently, I honestly do not know what I would have done had I not found this wonderful site and all of you!! Joan you wrote, "It is time for me to get out of this Alzheimer riptide before it pulls me down and sucks the life out of me." I am in the same place. You so eloquently described how we all have to go through this journey in our own way. I too have spent years with my husband as the focus and finally realized this disease is taking me too. Like the riptide. We all know when we reach this place and can either succumb to ill health or worse or somehow find the energy to move on in the "single" lane. For me that is a lot of effort and what that looks like is murky. Small steps as you say Joan - matinees etc. I keep thinking about someone's post recently how being single now after years with our lovers, confidants, best friends, and yes "bug killers" :-)) is so different!! So very different and such a challenge to make sense of. I am so glad we have this place to join hands and try and navigate together. Warm regards to you all.
Joan - best of luck to you in your new resolve. I am single now after 60 yrs and am finding it difficult not having a companion. Couldn't wish dh back his quality of life was so poor in his last days. But getting started in this new life isn't easy. Again good luck to you and thanks so much for this forum where we can share.
So true Dave....It's so hard to sleep in the middle of the bed...have you tried sleeping in the middle of the bed, I always end up back on my side by morning!
As always, Joan, you've hit another nail squarely on its head. I can relate so well to all you've written. I know that I waited a year too long before placing Clare in day care. After being with her 24/7 for so long, for the past 5 months she has been going 3x/week to day care programs. I, too, am at the stage of taking 'baby steps' ... such as occasionally going out for brunch on my own after dropping Clare off at day care. At first it felt so weird ... but not anymore. So good luck with your decision to try to experience a new kind of 'me time' as a single person ... you deserve it.
You go girl! It is so hard, going to a movie alone, then a lunch, then a party but you will have a life. I have seen some spouses spend all day in the assisted living facility thereby having no life of their own. Would their loved one have wanted that sacrifice, whose needs are being served? Even when Sid is placed you will be surprised how much time he still takes up in your life. thank you for your candor and love.
I'm sorry that you have to go through this and make this decision and I'm also happy that you have made this decision.
So many people retire and have no game plan on what to do next but if they have only started changes a little bit at a time over the years the transition goes so smoothly. I guess this is the same thing.
Very Poignant, Joan. Thanks for being our fearless leader, blazing the trail for the rest of us. I mourn your loss along with you. At the same time, I so admire your courage. You're always willing to step out and see what's out there. As with everything else you've done for all of us, you're showing us, with baby steps, how to start living again. We are all Family in this horrible nightmare and, at least for me, the sharing that goes on with this forum is life saving. Again, THANK YOU!!!
joan its good to hear you have made some positive steps in coming to this very sad conclusion that we do find outselves single again. not everyone will want another relationship and many will just want to forge new friendships with those like ourselves and new common interests. it takes conviction and strong fortitude to find a way here to make the best of what we have been dealt with this sad but new way of living. my best to you in your new endeavors! divvi
My computer got wiped out a few months ago and I "lost" all of my information. I just regoogled this blog and am so glad to reconnect. I too have been dealing with the "single but not single" changes...it stinks. But I am going to make a postive change that, though a major step, should help in the long run. So glad to find this again and to read that I am not alone. Hugs too everyone. Machonnold
I'm one of the ones who isn't interested in a relationship with a man at this time. I say at this time because who knows what I will want in a year or ten years. I'm 71 and that is one of the reasons I'm not interested. But in this world I could easily live another 20 or 30 years, so I also have to have a life.
I went from being a child to being a wife, at 19, with no time as an independent single adult. I've got that to work through too.
Because of one last cross county move (this is my 8th house) I had no lifetime friends to fall back on. I needed to make friends, who were MY friends, not OUR friends. I know a lot of people have a hard time with the couple thing but that wasn't my experience. I have friends who are married. I'm not interested in stealing their husbands and they seem to know it. A couple of them regularly include "the widows" in some of the things they do. I'm not the only widow included so it is perfectly comfortable. But mostly I've looked for other widows to become friends with.
I have also picked ONE interest to focus on. I quilt. I blog about quilting. I think focusing on one interest is important for someone like me.
Starling - I think many of us are like you. We also moved alot, so never was in one place to have friends. When we were once we left we never heard from these 'friends' except for an ocassional email forward. Also, like so many others here our world was 'us', we did almost everything together. The only time we had others to talk to was at work or church, but once we left it was just us. Also, so many of us here went from parents to marriage and have never had the 'single' experience.
That makes is really lonely on the journey but I am wondering when finally single if it might be a little easier.