[Anonymous Guest Post, by a 46 year old woman from Alabama]
In 1998 my maternal grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I am an only child and both my mother and grandmother had passed away in 1993. My mother was also an only child, so that left me to care for my grandfather, who was alone, except for a few nephews and nieces.
I am 46 years old, female, and live in Alabama. My family, on my mother's side, is very scattered out and I'm not close to very many people on that side. I am also married and the mother of a son with Asperger's Syndrome, who was only two years old when my grandfather was diagnosed. Needless to say, I had a very full plate for a number of years.
My grandfather lived by himself in a trailer on property owned by one of his nephews. He started showing signs of dementia several months before the diagnosis. He would forget something you said to him moments before, and started getting up in the middle of the night and wandering around the yard.I lived about 15 miles away from him, so didn't see him on a daily basis at that point. Once the Alzheimer's diagnosis was made, it was evident that he needed more care than we could provide him ourselves. We had to make a definite and speedy decision after he got into his car one morning and was gone for 10 hours. He did come back, but we had no idea where he had been at that point. He said he went out to "look for a job". At that time, my grandfather was in his 80's and had been retired for 20 years. Something had to be done for his safety.
I found an opening at a small assisted living home about 5 miles from my house. It provided room and board, but was rather costly. Luckily, my grandfather had some CD's which I was able to use to cover his extra expenses. Getting power of attorney, having him declared incompetent, and setting up an account to take care of his expenses were all part of the process. I would highly recommend that anyone facing this situation do these things before they become a matter of urgency. I had to pay the first two months of my grandfather's expenses in assisted living out of my own pocket while we got insurance claims filed, and legal matters settled.
My grandfather was not told where he would be going. He thought we were going on a trip and staying at a "hotel" for a few days. He would never have agreed to go to the assisted living home, otherwise. He was very upset after a few days, even though his nephew and I tried to stay with him as much as possible, at first. He got very angry at us and kept yelling that he wanted to go back to his house. At that point, he was talking about the home he and my grandmother had lived in for 30 years. I don't know that he even remembered living in his little trailer any more.
I found that the best way to calm my grandfather down was to talk about something he loved, which was football. We are huge Alabama football fans in my family and my grandfather knew a lot about the team. He was a particular fan of Paul "Bear" Bryant", and just mentioning his name would make my grandfather's face light up. He would talk football for hours, albeit repetitively. After a few months in assisted living, my grandfather didn't recognize me any more, but could still tell me all the details of a particular bowl game that Alabama played in. Alzheimer's is a strange disease in that it leaves great gaping holes in the memories of those it strikes. My grandfather was certainly a prime example of this.
My grandfather had always loved food. He was an excellent cook and always enjoyed cooking for others. As his Alzheimer's progressed, though, he became less enthusiastic about eating and got to the point, eventually, where he was no longer able to feed himself easily. The assisted living facility provided decent meals, but I tried to supplement his diet by bringing him food that I knew he loved, like homemade vegetable soup, with everything diced into small pieces he could chew easily and swallow. He experienced a lot of nausea after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I suspect that some of the medication he was taking may have caused this. My grandfather took a common drug prescribed for Alzheimer's and an anti-anxiety medication, as well. They were moderately effective, but I think his condition was too far advanced for any medication to have been of significant help.
My grandfather's condition worsened, and after a year he had to be placed in a nursing home. He died about 6 months later. In the end, he had lost the use of his legs, and could no longer speak more than 2 words at a time. He no longer recognized any one around him, and we knew he lived in the past inside his head. It was a terrible ordeal to watch him suffer with the ramifications of Alzheimer's. May we some day find a cure for this terrible disease.
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