COLUMN: Caring for grandmother with Alzheimer's changes priorities in life
November is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month and, according to a report released in August by www.alz.org, one in 10 American families reports they have a relative with Alzheimer’s disease.
Last year, I faced the fact I am now a statistic.
I recently began helping to care for my grandmother. She is suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s and it is starting to freak me out.
It has been a tough semester and I have often wanted to quit and just disappear.
Attending college and everything that goes with it seems so meaningless to me right now.
My grandmother is where my mind is and she has been part of my life ever since I can remember. My earliest memories of her are at her house preparing Christmas dinner with my mother and aunts. Now, I do most of the cooking.
Though we have had our personal challenges between us, I believe my grandmother has the toughest challenge ahead of her. She is slowly watching herself lose her mind. I cannot fathom what she must be going through.
She gets frustrated and angry when she forgets something. I try to sympathize with her but I feel like it only makes things worse.
It breaks my heart, watching her cry because she is unable to do the simplest chore.
I used to make jokes about her forgetfulness. I did this to help me deal with the reality of what was happening.
There is no more room for jokes or laughing. I can see the fear in her eyes when she is trying to remember what she was doing.
Her stubbornness to seek help and the family’s apathy has me worried that she will be gone mentally a lot sooner than I would like. But what I like no longer matters. This is about trying to help her through this challenge.
She goes about her day looking like she is healthy. But we all know she is not healthy. The hardest part to understand is she will not get better; there is no cure or pill to restore her brain. She only will get worse and someday she might not even know her own husband of 60 years.
Facing the truth that one day she may not even know who I am has me horrified. How does someone accept the fact that a person they love will slowly lose their mind?
Piece by piece she slips away from the family and there is nothing we can do but watch.
Yet as I see her face this challenge I know I must go forward too. It would be easy for me to quit, but I cannot because I know she would not.
She once said to me that challenges will arise in our lives, but it is how we face these difficulties that will determine in the end, how our story is told.
I know my grandmother’s story will be a great one to tell.
