LITTLE THINGS ADD UP TO LARGER LOSSES
Living with Alzheimer’s column
Nov. 11, 2013
I was blindsided this past summer. As a caregiver for someone with Alzheimer’s you come to accept that life is tricky and that the unexpected has become a new normal.
After I got blindsided, I could look back and see a trail of clues that led to that day.
It is not as if the clues weren’t there for me, they were. It was just that I had not yet connected the dots.
What caught me off guard that day had everything to do with my husband’s struggles with cash money and with numbers.
We had been running errands and stopped at a favourite cafe for a quick lunch. When I asked Chuck to pay for our meal, there was an immediate change in him. A familiar withdrawal and unwillingness to communicate. It was a short time later, driving home, that he asked if I could explain something to him.
He took out his wallet, pulled out a $20 bill. He then pointed to the corner of the bill and asked me to tell him what the 2 and the 0 stood for.
And that was what did me in.
My husband, the successful businessman who well understood numbers and their significance, did not know the number 20 on a bill.
When I look back I clearly see the clues and how they all fit together — the fact that he is unable to make any sense of a financial statement, that since I have known him he has carried his cash folded in his front pocket but then one day started carrying it in his wallet, that he has great difficulty spending money, even to buy a Costco hotdog.
And I knew he had been struggling with numbers.
So I now get how we arrived at that moment this past summer. Coupled with his struggles with numbers and his lack of understanding of money invested, but knowing he no longer receives a paycheque, Chuck now believes he has no money, so finds it very hard to spend any.
And I am thinking he lost his fold of bills one day so started to carry his money in a wallet instead.
It that was the case, it would have caused him relentless fretting, again leading to this unwillingness to spend money.
But all this led to the day this past summer when I was blindsided. And the fact I was totally unprepared for it when it happened, clues and all.
Nov. 18, 2013
My most constant companion, the transitioning Chuck, or my Fifty Shades of Chuck, needs some clarification. The episode with the $20 bill is a good example for me to use.
Chuck No. 1 would never not know what a $20 bill was, and Chuck No. 3 will, most likely, not know or care.
Chuck No. 2, some days he is closer on the scale to No. 1, going to pay for something causes him only mild to moderate consternation.
The day he did not know a $20 bill was an example of him being very close to No. 3. Money was a mystery to him.
The unfortunate part of this transitioning man is that he rapidly varies between the opposing ends and all points in-between, mostly with little or no warning that the shift is coming.
Whether it is caused by a change in the chemistry of his brain at that particular moment or caused by outside circumstances is, most of the time, impossible to discern.
This makes his life complicated, challenging and overwhelming. It totally robs him of the confidence needed to live life.
To not know from one minute to the next the abilities he will have, to not be able to count on anything remaining constant enough to allow him to accomplish a task, and to know and acknowledge these difficulties is an enormous burden on him.
Because he is aware of his shortcomings and the effect it has on him is heartbreaking to witness.
Dec. 4, 2013
Alzheimer’s is a disease defined by loss. Whether somewhat insignificant in nature or devastating in scope, loss is another of the constants of life with Alzheimer’s disease.
The past six months have seen losses, losses of a personal nature, on a larger scale than the more mundane, smaller losses that every month brings. Big — such as Chuck no longer being permitted to drive. Or the painful loss of the friendship of someone who he believed would be there until the end.
Or the loss of the 16 pounds that have fallen off his already slim frame.
Or the realization that our life of time spent in Mexico every winter had come to an end. These are all losses large in scope, losses that emphasize the ongoing deterioration the disease relentlessly brings.
Countering the ongoing losses is a deeper appreciation for the good that comes along.
To see how excited our two oldest granddaughters are to dance in the Disney parade this upcoming spring.
Or that our place in Mexico sold in one day. Can you beat that?
Or that Chuck, during our final three weeks in Mexico, put four of the pounds he had lost back on. Something to feel positive about.
So we attempt to keep our focus on the good and downplay or mostly ignore the other.
We know the losses will keep coming, whether in tiny increments or greater doses.
It becomes a matter of finding some measure of balance so the tragedy of it all does not continually threaten to overwhelm every aspect of our daily lives.
2020
Weight loss, despite a good appetite, has been brought up by more than one person at support group meetings in relation to the changes they are seeing as caregivers.
Sheryl Theessen is an Okanagan writer, mother and wife to someone living with Alzheimer’s disease. Email: theessen@ shaw.ca