My Alzheimer's Journal #5

Alzheimer's is so weird. As I mentioned in a previous post I could not remember my oldest grandchild's name the other day. And, especially in the evening, I often get confused when Connie or someone else is trying to explain something to me. That happened last night, but then, just 30 minutes later I was able to complete a crossword puzzle in record time. Truly I don't understand how that's possible.

I can tell that at times Connie gets exasperated or frustrated with me when I forget something important or don't understand what she is trying to tell me. And that pains me. I can remember things that happened long ago. I remember our best friends at the time of our marriage telling me they were so glad Connie and I got together because they did not like the rich Boston doctor she was seeing before me. Sometimes now I wonder if Connie made the wrong choice.

I struggle with depression a lot now. Connie suggested I ask our PCP to give me some drug to deal with it but I don't think that would do any good. I'm pretty sure I don't have clinical depression. I'm just sad that my brain is wasting away. I'm not suicidal but I admit there are times that I am jealous of friends or acquaintances who get ill and die relatively quickly from some cancer or heart disease. It took my mom and my aunt years to die from Alzheimer's and the last several years they were so frightened and confused and such a burden to their loved ones. I feel like I'm already a bit of a burden to Connie and I hate that.

That's all for now.

My Alzheimer's Journal #4

Yesterday was a very depressing day for me. I came to the realization that I was making too many mistakes due to my memory loss in interacting with the brides and grooms whose weddings I would be officiating. So I contacted Father Ken to let him know that after November of this year, I would no longer be able to work with the God Squad Wedding Ministers. I've been with them for almost 20 years and it brought me so much joy and satisfaction. But I didn't want to embarrass them or my brides and grooms by doing something stupid or forgetting something important.

Then last night I saw a funny meme on facebook that involved a humorous pun. So I copied it and when to send it to my oldest grandson who is an expert punster, only to realize that I could not remember his name. That devastated me. I had to look on his mother's page to find his name. He comes to our house all the time. He used to cut our grass before we moved into an HOA community.
But I couldn't remember my own grandson's name. The experience made me remember when my father put pictures of my brothers and I and our spouses and kids on the wall with labels explaining who we were to help my mother remember before we came to visit. I guess I'm about at that point now in this horrible disease.

I remember after my dad died of a stroke thinking that I wanted to go out like him. Go quickly. I hoped not to die like my mom who was so frightened and disoriented in the last year of her life. She got to the point where she not only did not know any of us, she didn't even know her own name. And now, knowing that is my own fate, well... it's very depressing. I remember how much caring for her took out of my dad, even though they were living in an assisted living community. Connie is not in the best of health and I worry about being a burden to her when I lose more of my cognitive ability.

That's all for today.

My Alzheimer's #3

I'm pretty sure my hearing problem is making my Alzheimer's worse. We got back from our trip to see our grandson graduate from Army boot camp on Saturday and then yesterday hosted a welcome home party for him. We had 19 people in our little house and with so many people talking at the same time my hearing aids can't discriminate the words I want to hear from all the background noise. So I miss a lot of what is being said. And working hard at trying to understand what people are saying literally wears me out.

I have, however, discovered one good thing about Alzheimer's. When watching an Agatha Christie mystery I have seen once or twice before, the surprise ending is still a surprise.

One of my most aggravating symptoms is not being able to say a word that I want to say. A couple of times I've resorted to pantomiming the word. Connie almost always knows what I mean when I do that. Yesterday I was talking to Connie about our trip and I wanted to say our grandson's name, I know what his name is but I couldn't get the word out, so I saluted and since we had just come from his boot camp graduation, Connie knew I was talking about Zach.  Another thing I have noticed is that the word I can't get out is almost always a noun.

In a few minutes, Connie will drive me to church so that I can spend time with my Stephen Ministry care receiver. I'm still able to be a Stephen Minister because most of what that entails is just listening.

That's all for now.