Imagine losing your
memories—forgetting your friends, unable to recognize your spouse, no longer
recalling the names of your own children. Imagine, too, that you lose interest
in reading, hiking, cooking or whatever other pastimes and passions define your
life. Now imagine that you can no longer eat, walk or dress yourself. You must
rely on people around you for the most basic human tasks, like taking
medications and brushing your teeth, but you don’t fully understand what’s going
on, because you can’t remember what’s happened or why.
When most people hear someone has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, they just think of them as losing their memory. It is so very, very much more than that. As a person with Alzheimer’s, you lose everything that made you who you were. You lose your personality and your sense of humor. You lose every skill, regardless of how talented you were. You no longer retain reasoning ability and your judgment becomes totally impaired. And maybe the most tragic of all, there is no more learning.
You lose contact with your friends, because you can no
longer communicate with them, and they are at a loss to know how to talk to
you.
To lose your memory is to lose the memory of your life.
You lose your marriage, the birth of your children or even the knowledge that
you have children. You lose all the things and places that you ever loved and
enjoyed. Everything you ever read and learned from books and study is
gone.
There comes a time when you have to ask, “What is my name?”
You forget how to take care of your personal needs. You
have to be led to the bathroom, to your bedroom and to the sink for a drink of
water.
You can’t dress yourself. You have to have help to bathe,
to shave, to brush your teeth, to shampoo and comb your hair. You can no
longer tie your shoes nor many, many other things we all take for granted every
hour of our life.
As a victim of Alzheimer’s you eventually become an empty
shell at the mercy of others to care for you.
Never again will I take it lightly when I hear someone
has Alzheimer’s. I have witnessed firsthand the horrors of this
disease. Some might think “horror” is too strong of a word, but it
describes perfectly what I have seen. It is the most heartrending thing I
have experience in my lifetime.
Alzheimer’s is like an animal after its prey. Nothing
will stop it until it takes your last breath.
I am my dear husband’s caregiver. We are both
trapped in a world of Alzheimer’s with its heartache, its emptiness and
loneliness, and worst of all, its hopelessness.
Every morning I awake to the same empty feeling and I
ask, “Please God, show me the way to better care for his needs.” I never
cease to feel guilty because it’s so hard to be patient and kind every minute
of the day.
Mother Teresa said, “Kindness is a language the blind can see and the deaf can
hear.” I so want to be kind. Even if he doesn’t understand what I am
saying, I want him to hear the love and gentleness in my words. He
deserves every good thing I can give him. He has been everything a wife
could ever ask for in our many years together.
Morning hours are not quite as stressful, but as the day
drags on, I get so tired and in my mind I think, “Will this never end?
He always wants to go to bed early. I dress him and
kiss him goodnight. While he’s asleep is the only time he seems like the
man I have loved so long and so dearly. Some nights I lie awake for hours
and look at him and at times I feel so ashamed of my thoughts. My thoughts
of wishing his empty life could end in his sleep even though I would miss him
so much.
I still feel safe in bed with him. How could life
and feelings get so mixed up?
There’s no happy way out and life goes on and on one long
day at a time.
One thing I am sure of — thanks to the God he has served
so faithfully.
Alzheimer’s cannot take his soul.
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