This was depressing: My sister and I visited our Aunt Joan today (she has Alzheimer's), and

Redstone

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Sun Aug-03-08 09:26 PM
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This was depressing: My sister and I visited our Aunt Joan today (she has Alzheimer's), and

Edited on Sun Aug-03-08 09:42 PM by Redstone

had to be put in the Home up in New Hampshire a few months ago. Now, understand that this is a very good "Home;" our grandfather spent his last two years there, although he lived there because of physical problems, not dementia.

When we left, I had to stop at the central staff station and tell them that I considered all of them to be saints, because of what I saw there.

It was heartbreaking. Aunt Joan looked exactly like she's looked for the last ten years. A bit frail, but dressed normally, clean, hair cut as always, and brushed. And she TALKED like she always had; that was the hard part. But where before she was a fountain of family history and town news, what she said today was was clear in speech but garbled in content. She'd recognize my sister or me, or understand who we were talking about when we referred to her own children, for about two seconds, then she'd lose track of the people we were talking about, and even her own identity.

And there were even more heartbreaking aspects of the visit, but I simply cannot go into them right now.

Current wisdom says that the best ways to stave off Alzheimer's are to stay active both physically and mentally. But at least in Aunt Joan's case, that isn't the case. For the physical side, she NEVER stopped moving; I don't think, for example, that there was one day in fifty years that she wasn't remodeling something or other in her house, or being involved in the running of the town where she lived. For the mental side, she was always the "go-to" when you wanted to know anything about our family history, or local town happenings or history.

Alzheimer's is SO cruel. Aunt Joan sat on the side of her bed, between me and my sister. My sister hugged her, then I did, then she sat with my arm around her, laid her hand on my knee and her head on my shoulder, and she wept. That, I think, is the ultimate cruelty of Alzheimer's; I believe that in some core of her brain, my beloved Aunt Joan knew, although she could not articulate that thought, that she KNEW that there was just something that wasn't right about being where she was, rather than being at home with her husband and in contact with her kids. And may I say for the record how much I admire my Uncle Don (who had been kind of a Good-Time-Charlie) for stepping up to the plate and taking care of Aunt Joan when she really needed him to do so. It was a hard, hard, decision for him to make, to send her to live at the Home. But a decision that HAD to be made.

Again, Alzheimer's is SO cruel, and if you've never seen what it can do, you can't understand. I did not understand myself until today. While we were walking to my car afterward, I told my sister, "You're the oldest one, so you get to have the responsibility. I know Mrs R won't do it, so I'm putting my trust in you, if I ever get to that point, to give me the overdose of heroin that I plan to arrange, or if I didn't manage to arrange that, to just put the damn pillow on my face and hold it there."

I've told my older son the same thing, and I hope that if it comes to that, that one or the other of them will have the courage to give me that mercy.

Thank you all for reading this. It's been a hard day for me; that visit followed by the 230-mile drive home. I'm weary.

Redstone