I invite you to log onto the home page - www.thealzheimerspouse.com - and read today's blog. It is about a realization that just hit me on Monday after the Super Bowl was over. I think it is kind of interesting. Maybe you will too. Maybe you have other odd ways of tracking your spouses' progression. Please post comments here. Thank you.
Hb doesn't remember even watching the game. I can't remember the last time he watched a hockey, baseball or football game and remembered. Everything is the moment. When they show a play again, to him it is the first time he has seen it. It is sad.
Frank was an avid Okla. U football fan. In his last days in the hospital our sons were with him watching a game and he was awake (he had been sleeping almost all the time). He kept asking about the game and about the score and finally he asked for a pin to write it down . When our son handed it to him he realized Frank's eyes were closed. sad
Our football history is similar to Joan's. He is in nursing home, I mentioned the game to him, blank look. Said he would have to check his schedule and see if he could learn about football. I gave up. I went back to my apartment and turned the game on with the mute on. 50 years...I remember when we watched the first Super Bowl, the years of parties, game food, etc. Another page for my memory book. He lived for the football season to start. Now his joy comes from tossing the balloon game and throwing marshmallows pretending that they are snowballs. It makes me so happy to see him enjoying himself.
Joan, Your blog is so moving. My husband was a quiet but steadfast Red Sox fan and you rarely saw him without a baseball cap on his head. Although he followed other sports, baseball was really his game and it suited his personality. While he was watching a game on TV or listening to it on the radio, he would cook up a pot of stew, putter around in the basement, read a history book, or just sit on the couch with a magazine in his hand and a cat on his lap.
I had absolutely no interest in sports and ignored the whole thing but when the Sox started winning games in 2004, I could see that he was excited, so I started following the games, learning the names of the players, etc. We only went to Fenway Park once each summer but we often talked about "someday" going to Florida to see spring training. After he was diagnosed in 2007, every year for the next 4 years, I booked a one-week trip to Ft. Meyers. We He really enjoyed these baseball trips for the first 3 years but the 4th year was too much for him. For a long time now, he has not even recognized the game or the team’s name. Nor does he recognize any other sport. They show all the sports games on the big TV in the day room of his care unit but as far as he is concerned they could be cooking shows. He still wears a Red Sox cap every day, even though he doesn't know what it means.
ADDED 2/12/15 Just checked out our local paper online and it's showing a picture of the Red Sox "equipment truck" (a big tractor-trailer) rolling out of Fenway Park, heading for Ft. Meyers, FL. There goes my composure . . .
My DH is a huge college football fan. I have been raised watching football. My family moved from Ohio, so Ohio state was our team. My DH is an Alabama fan. His family is from there. Our DD's attended UGA, university of Georgia. Our SIL did to. But his family is from Michigan. So many teams there. All of us played a sports game together picking winners. The winner would get a certificate I made. For four years I had to help DH pick. Last year I had to pick for him. This year he did not participate. He would get up an wander during the games. He got confused who was who on the field. It is very sad. This year I know he will not be home to even try to watch.
Jeff was not a sports fan in particular, but I sure get the concept of marking decline into AD by thinking about life events. It is how I remember his trajectory...It was on the cusp of New Years, 02/03 that we took that trip to visit his sister in London...I thought a get away would be a relaxing time for us to reconnect after his several months of unexplained irritability. I was wrong...it was even worse with jet lag. 2004, on a trip to Boulder, CO with our kids. I handed him a roadmap while I drove us from Boulder to Colorado Springs, feeling as I did it that it was a mistake. He got frustrated by my instructions, and threw the map. 17 yo daughter navigated for me instead. 2005, he and I went to Seattle and the San Juan Islands. My attempt to salvage what was left of our romantic life was an utter failure. I remember sitting there in a nice inn, journaling about it because I had no one to talk to. Dx didn't come until '07.
In a way, it's like remembering where you were when (eg) you heard John Lennon was shot. (In an art class, Kenyon College.) These emotional events trigger our memories to lock in this stuff, and lots gets locked in by our long struggles as AD caregivers.
Oh Joan, I type with tears running down my face. What a beautifully sad and lovely blog post.
When we consider special events or likes of our loved one, and the deterioration over time, many things seem somehow clearer.
My husband was never a football fan and I know nothing about the game. When I arrived at his facility, he was sitting in front of the TV watching the Super Bowl. I sat with him and we held hands watching the game. Neither of us knew anything that was going on but it was a special quiet time for us. This disease takes so very much.
Kevan can still enjoy his sports but can't do any of the handyman jobs he used to do. He can't remember how to do any of then. It's strange how this disease takes away some abilities but leaves others intact. How long before his enjoyment of sports is gone as well?
Joan in the beginning paragraphs, I see some of your humor shining through! Dan was never a do or die football fan - he understood it, but didn't change his schedule just for a game. He was a bowler & a golfer, has done neither for a couple of years now. He will look at those on television, but there isn't much reaction to an outstanding shot. I say he looks at TV as opposed to watching it, because most of the time he seems oblivious to what is actually on. Other than his golf & bowling, I can't think of any particular things through the years that would really mark how this disease has changed him from one year to the next.
This year I tried to watch the Super Bowl at home by myself but kept crying too hard to watch it. I remembered Super Bowl 2010 that we watched together in a hospital as he was recovering from major back surgery. That surgery marked the beginning of his rapidly increasing decline. But as recently as last year he was still able to enjoy the game. This year he didn't know what a Super Bowl is.