Caring amid the loneliness
‘Elaines’ tells of loving a wife with Alzheimer’s
Over a decade of caring for a spouse with Alzheimer’s disease, Martin J. Schreiber looked at many books on the subject, without finding one that described his situation.
“I didn’t benefit much from the bookish science stuff or the bullet-point howtos,” he writes in “My Two Elaines.” Now, with the aid of veteran local journalist Cathy Breitenbucher, Schreiber has written a book for guys like him, guys who unexpectedly find themselves caring for partners who often took care of them for years — and who experience a painfully lonely journey.
Schreiber, a former Wisconsin governor, opened many eyes when he shared his caregiving story with Journal Sentinel reporter Mark Johnson in December 2015. “My Two Elaines” expands on the primary theme of that article: the corrosive effect of loneliness on the caregiver, which can lead to poorer health and quality of life for both spouses. Figuratively speaking, his book reminds other caregivers to put their own oxygen masks on first, so they can truly be present for their spouses.
In writing about their earlier years together, Schreiber consistently describes Elaine as the smarter, organized, together one. As her Alzheimer’s progressed, he stopped exercising and neglected other friendships, gaining weight as his life narrowed to attending his spouse. “When your caregiving burden means you give up a healthy lifestyle, you’re stacking the odds against yourself, leaving you with the sickening possibility that your partner with Alzheimer’s will outlive you,” he writes.
Stubbornly, Schreiber believed that loving Elaine as deeply as he did, he could handle her progressing condition on his own. Belatedly, he discovered otherwise. On a winter vacation in Florida, he searched, “frantic and furious,” for $1,000 in fifties and hundreds he realized Elaine had stashed somewhere. Four days later, he found the money, stuffed in a sock in a dresser drawer.
His message: Ask for help. Getting respites and taking care of yourself will make you a better partner and caregiver.
Schreiber threads the book with Post-it-size notes on “What I wish I’d known,” such as this: “I should have started earlier to search out adult daycare so that I could reclaim part of the day for myself, including time for exercise.” Some of these may
seem obvious to people reading them in tranquility, but they weren’t so obvious to Schreiber in the moment and in crisis. He and Breitenbucher take nothing for granted and assume a potential reader knows nothing about Alzheimer’s.
The book’s larger font, generous spacing and conversational tone make easier reading for tired eyes.