Living with Dementia

Today. Today has been a rough day. It's been SO long since I've posted but I really just need to get my thoughts out there. So please bear with me as I'm typing this on my phone and my thoughts are scattered. It started with a trip to the Lego store. I started a little small talk with a friendly lady while Michael built some little Lego men. I found out she was in town for the day. She explained she received a call from her grandson, who so sweetly said, "grandma when can we go to the Lego Store?" Upon hearing this, she called out of work, drove up from Williamsburg and obviously took him. It hit me like a ton of bricks. This seemingly innocent story. I started bawling. She thought I was crazy. See, my mom is my dad's primary care giver. Though my dad is in daycare twice a week, that means my mom basically has no time to herself. It is a very selfless act, an act of love and a huge test of patience and a show of who my mother is. Because she is his primary...

Having a loved one with Dementia is extremely difficult. Almost everyone knows someone who has it or has been affected by it, but yet there is still so little known about it. There is still so little to prevent, slow, treat, or cure it. When I was about 11 years old, my grandfather (my dad's father) was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He was in his late 80s and it was most likely onset by age. He eventually succumbed to the disease or natural causes. I remember how devastated my father was when his own father didn't know him. My dad has looked just like my granddad his whole life, but yet my granddad had no idea who my dad was when he would visit. After visiting with him, my dad would say if that ever happened to him to drive him out on a country road and kick him out to let the animals have him (he was always a huge animal and nature lover). Knowing how he felt about this disease makes watching him suffer with it that much harder.  Some days we get glimpses of his ...

Four years ago this week we were in Savannah for a 'babymoon' with my family. Also to get our dogs back, which my parents had been watching all Summer for us while we prepared for our baby's arrival. My dad had been more than excited to watch his granddogs, he'd always been an animal lover and he absolutely adored Sabrina. This time was different though, it was almost like therapy for him. I had mixed emotions about taking the dogs back but we were seeing my parents in just a few weeks again anyway because of Michael's birth. We met my parents at a hotel in Savannah, per usual my dad was quiet. I told him if he wanted he could keep the dogs in their room for the weekend, and this seemed to perk him up. It was during this trip I noticed the almost OCD like habits my father had formed. Noting first that while it was great the dogs were getting walked, he was walking them 8 or more times a day. He'd come inside, sit down and then get right back up to walk them...

In June of 2013, I was five months pregnant and preparing to come home for a Baby Shower my mom's friends were hosting for me. Sometime in the beginning of that month I got a call that started out with "don't worry but..." followed up with finding out that earlier in the day my dad had fallen at work. He had tripped on a curb. The details were fuzzy, but basically his ankle was hurt and he'd also hit his head. His ankle was the big worry at the time because of his work and love for golf. Again, I was told not to worry, so I didn't. No big deal. It was a little strange though, to my mom at least, as my dad never got hurt. He wasn't the clumsy type so she didn't understand how it happened, and he couldn't tell her. At the time, we didn't know it, but after much research and many consultations with doctors, we believe when he hit his head it rapidly accelerated his symptoms. Flash forward a few weeks and I came home for my shower. My dads ankle ...

I have to say, if you ever met my dad, you'd know he was the most incredible man, with the best laugh, a warm smile, a huge heart and a knack to tell jokes just right.  He could talk to anyone and was always the friendliest man in the room. He loved animals, and he would give you the shirt off his back if you asked him to. I always admired him, I still do, and I still feel so lucky to be his daughter. I've always been daddy's girl. Now though, that smile is gone, that laugh is gone, and who was once the funniest man in the room is now just a man who stares blankly at a television screen. I admire him now for his strength to live through the most horrendous disease, with grace. Some that struggle with the disease are angry, aggressive, even violent. My dad is patient, easy going, and sweet, even on his worst days. I think that speaks volumes about his character. I had always wanted children young because my parents were much older (they had struggled to get pregnant wit...

It had to have been years before we really knew. We thought maybe it was his hearing, or maybe just old age. Really though, we were in denial. When I look back I can trace it to at least three years before his diagnosis. I wish I'd known the signs and symptoms then. Perhaps we could have delayed it better, but in the end, we got a diagnosis we never wanted and one we have dreaded ever since. In March of 2015 my father was officially diagnosed with Primary Progressive Aphasia Dementia. He was only 69 years old. Since that day, my life and my mothers life have been drastically different. She is after all his primary caretaker. I wanted to write this blog to address any questions, share my story, my point of view and most of all to inform. I hope I can help just one person, one person who may be in denial too, who doesn't know what to look for. After all, not all forms of Dementia are the same. I remember the day like it was yesterday, the first time I really knew something wasn...