Final months as dad’s caregiver ‘a gift’ for Grimsby woman
Natalie Walker credits family, local agency for support while her father suffered from Alzheimer’s disease
Natalie Walker remembers when her dad — the vigorous guy who taught school for 30 years, sometimes even lugging a couple of students along on family trips — started slipping.
Mostly small things, like repeating himself or uncharacteristic flashes of anger.
It was Alzheimer’s disease; he was diagnosed about six years ago. It progressed slowly.
By the middle of 2019, his family had to make a decision.
“I said to my husband, ‘Dad’s not ready for a nursing home … he can’t move into a long-term-care home, he’s not ready for that,’” says Natalie, who is a school teacher like her dad.
His place, they decided, was with them in their Grimsby home. They would care for him there.
And that’s where John Walker would spend the rest of his life, until he died there Dec. 11, 2020, at age 78.
“People would say, ‘You’re taking on a lot,’” she recalls. “But how could I not do that for him? He would do that for me in a second.”
In Niagara, there are close to 11,000 people living with dementia and its most common form, Alzheimer’s.
The disease physically changes the brain, over time impacting a person’s ability to perform simple tasks or make decisions.
It affects memory, can cause confusion and can reach the point where Alzheimer’s patients are unresponsive and require 24-hour care.
Caring for a person with Alzheimer’s can be exhausting for their family but there are resources that can help, such as Alzheimer Society Niagara Region.
His primary caregivers — Natalie, her husband Dave Dimarco, her mom Lark who lives in St. Catharines, her brother John as well as sister Celina — knew it could get difficult.
But in some ways, they had no idea what they were in for.
They couldn’t have seen the COVID-19 pandemic that was coming.
And they had no idea that on top of it all, he would be diagnosed with a benign brain tumour last August that made it difficult to walk.
It was all hard on him, because “he loved to go anywhere with me,” says Natalie. “He always came grocery shopping, or if I had to run errands … he loved to be the guy who pushed the cart or put the groceries in the back.”
The pandemic forced people to stay home, she says, and he never quite understood why he couldn’t go shopping with her or why they couldn’t all go out to supper.
The pandemic was a very bad time “except — and I can almost make it without crying, sorry — I also think in some ways COVID was a gift,”
Natalie says, hoping she has chosen the proper words.
“I hate to say that, because there’s so much suffering. But I was given this gift of time that I wouldn’t have had if I’d kept going to work.”
Normally, she’d be out of the house by 7 a.m. for her teaching job in Mississauga. She might not be home until 6 p.m. or later.
But during the pandemic, she started teaching her kindergarten classes virtually, from home.
“And now all of a sudden, I’m eating lunch with Dad. I’m done work at 3 and we can go for a walk together,” she says. “I felt so fortunate for that.”
Caring for a person who has Alzheimer’s can be exhausting: The need to be always watching, to listen to the same questions and carry on the same conversations over and over again.
“I’m not a martyr, I wasn’t afraid to ask for help and say, ‘Dad’s driving me crazy, can you come? I need to get out for just a couple of hours,’” she says. “I was good at asking for help.”
What she would tell someone else who is a caregiver is this: “It’s a big undertaking, you have to be ready for it. I think you have to tap into every single resource that you can.”
Through the Alzheimer society she took a four-week course to understand the illness. There was a counsellor there who she could call, and who checked in with her.
It also offers drop-in programs for people with Alzheimer’s (during the pandemic, those have shifted to online Zoom meetings geared to their needs).
In his final week or two, when her dad was less responsive, the 1950s music he loved could still reach him.
“My dad was my dad right to the end,” Natalie says.
“I tell people this, because the worst part of Alzheimer’s, for me, was I was afraid he was going to forget me.”
“But how could I not do that for him? He would do that for me in a second.”
NATALIE WALKER ABOUT CARING FOR HER FATHER WHO SUFFERED FROM ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE