Finding My way

It’s hard to get things accomplished when you have to call someone to come over to stay with your loved one so that you can go out for a while. In 2017 I found it necessary to get new glasses after having my annual eye exam. I knew that might take a little time and I had to have someone stay with Al while I was away even thought he would be sleeping when I left and would probably sleep most of the time I was gone.

His sister came over to stay with him. I hadn’t realized until that day that maybe she didn’t know the full extent of the changes the disease had made in him. But when I returned home that morning she told me that he had walked into the kitchen wearing just his tee shirt and when he saw her there instead of me, he pulled his shirt down to cover himself. Then he calmly walked over to the waste can where I put papers that were to be discarded and he peed in the can. He then went back to the bedroom.

She was shocked! Shocked not only at his behavior but shocked that he hadn’t realized what he was doing. When she was telling me about this I realized that she had not known how much the disease had changed him. That was the day that she knew he would not get better but would continue to go downhill. My heart went out to her.

If there was anything good about that morning it was that now she knew what I was going through and her knowledge gave me someone I could talk to and who would understand my feelings and the loss I felt.

However there were some other things that were getting worse. For example, he began asking repeatedly to go see his parents. Both of them have been gone for several years. After his insistence that I tell him where they were I told him that they were in the cemetery. He said, “Oh, you’ve bought into that crap.” He insisted that he wanted to go get them and bring them to live with us.

This went on for weeks. Finally one evening after he had already been in bed for a couple of hours, he came into the room where I was and told me that if I wouldn’t take him to get them, he would go by himself. He was dressed and wearing his jacket and cap. My heart ached for him as he stood there in the doorway, dressed and ready to go. I told him it was too late and that we would go the next morning.

Frankly I didn’t know how I could get him to accept that we couldn’t get them. The following morning I got up early and at 8 AM I called the cemetery and explained to the woman who answered that my husband had Alzheimer’s and was intent on coming over there to get his mom and dad. I told her that I didn’t know if I could talk him out of it and that if he insisted, I would have to bring him as I couldn’t let him out by himself. She assured me that if we came to their office they would handle it gently. I could have hugged her!

As it turned out he had forgotten about it when he got up and the subject never came up again for any length of time.

That evening when he was so insistent on going to get them, I felt so powerless and helpless. I went online to the Cincinnati Chapter of Alzheimer’s Association and asked them what I should do. Unfortunately it was late when I sent that message so I didn’t hear back until the following morning and by then I felt like the situation was under control for the present.

But once again I realized there is no “how to” book that would lead me through these days. And I wondered, where could I turn when I needed answers? Who was there to help me know what to do?

Once again, I prayed for guidance.