Dad’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s
stayed hidden from everyone until I took over the medical administration of my parents
in 2015. Once I found out, there was a deafening silence from most of the
people I know even though virtually all of them would add, “My _____ had
Alzheimer’s…” But there was little help, little beyond people sadly shaking heads.
Or horror stories. Lots of those. Even the ones who knew about the disease seemed
to have received a gag order from some Central Alzheimer’s Command and did
little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known
reason, I started this part of my blog…
While my wife and
I were celebrating our 32nd anniversary, I chanced to start thinking
about how this was the first summer in…hmmm
How many years has
it been since Mom and Dad’s lives collided with mine? Not that it was an
accident; not that it wasn’t necessary; but once I became the neighborhood
contact and helper for my parents, my life changed drastically. Spontaneity
vanished. We couldn’t just “drive up North" or go camping without making plans
and preparing and notifying people.
Learning an
entirely new vocabulary, I became a lay-expert on the disease, its symptoms,
and its non-treatment. I added it to my breast cancer blog because the advent
of the disease in my father and also my mother (who had, most likely,
age-related dementia at the end) abruptly dominated my life as much as breast
cancer had.
How many years?
We interred Dad’s
remains this summer six weeks and two days ago (June 27, 2019); he passed six
months ago (February 4, 2019). Mom passed away three years ago (July 27, 2016).
They moved into Assisted Living in September of 2015 (I think – but that doesn’t
seem like that LONG ago! Could Mom and Dad have declined to a point of death in
just four short years? It doesn’t seem possible!) Yet, it happened.
I was a regular
visitor to Mom and Dad’s for a couple of years before that as Mom had stopped
driving and I took over getting her to her appointments. Of course, that was
about the time she began her serious decline. We’d discussed them moving out of
their townhome because of her decreasing mobility and Dad’s increasing memory
issues. They fought that one tooth-and-nail for a long time. Then Mom had her
last knee replacement. She was certain she’d bounce back just like she had from
the previous one. She was around my age – in her early sixties – when she
started the process of becoming a “bionic woman” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bionic_Woman)
with both hips and both knees replaced, as well as wearing a pacemaker. It was
our standing joke.
But when she was
in her early 80s, she begged for and eventually got, her second knee
replacement. But she wasn’t a kid anymore and afterward, she was in so much
pain, she refused to do PT. She refused to walk. Edema set in. I started coming
to their home to help; and discovered Dad’s “pill system”. I got permission to
see Mom’s records (because I was going to all of her appointments and taking
her to the hospital) and eventually Dad’s medical records as well, for the same
reason…the rest, shall we say, is history.
So, a minimum of a
year before they moved into assisted living: five years. So five years in which
my grandchildren aged, my son and daughter aged, my daughter got married six
months after my mom passed – and we were able to add a “taco bar” to the
reception menu, which is what new son-in-law had wanted from the beginning.
Let’s say a half
of a decade.
Wasted, some
people would say. For me, it was a time of incredibly rough growth. I am not
the man I was four or five years ago. What kind of man am I now? Hmmm. I’m not
sure yet. If you follow the blog, maybe you’ll see me change or the better.
Images from my
personal files.
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