I've just joined, sorry about formal title but it wouldn't let me register as Carole. I am so glad I found this site. My husband is now 59 and was formally diagnosed with alzheimers 3 years ago although my daughters and I think he started showing signs some good while before that. In those years I have gone through evey emotion in the book, in fact it some times seems like a journey to hell with no path back. We have watched a loving, jolly intelligent husband and dad change beyond all recognition into someone very grumpy and unaccepting and someone who has never spoken the word "alzheimer" once and does not either accept or talk about it.
My daughters are most supportive and help me all they can but they live away and have homes, partners and professions of there own. For the first couple of years I had no help at all from professionals and it still horrifies me that there is no provision at all for younger sufferers any where near us. I am only 54 and cannot afford to give up my demanding teaching job so now jim has to spend one day a week with his sister who has supported me terrifically and 4 days a week in day care which he never wants to go to, so each morning I have a battle to get him there before I go out to work.
I am frightened to think of the future I know it certainly isn't the one we had planned and worked for and I know it's going to be a solitary one for me as Jim slowly slips more and more away from us. How do I cope with finding somewhere for Jim, loosing my job, giving up the family home of 30 years to downsize to something more affordable, and whatever else I may have to deal with which I haven't realised yet.
In all this time I have tried to find someone near me living the same problems who I could chat with over coffee or better still a glass of wine but I could find no one. Until recently we didn't have a formal branch but we do have now. So I am glad to find this site where at least I have found people of similar age with similar problems. I know all sufferers differ with the disease but it is a common ground and a great source of comfort to know I am not as alone as I have felt over the past couple of years.
If anyone has any help or knowledge of provision for younger patients I would be grateful.
Many many thanks Carole
My daughters are most supportive and help me all they can but they live away and have homes, partners and professions of there own. For the first couple of years I had no help at all from professionals and it still horrifies me that there is no provision at all for younger sufferers any where near us. I am only 54 and cannot afford to give up my demanding teaching job so now jim has to spend one day a week with his sister who has supported me terrifically and 4 days a week in day care which he never wants to go to, so each morning I have a battle to get him there before I go out to work.
I am frightened to think of the future I know it certainly isn't the one we had planned and worked for and I know it's going to be a solitary one for me as Jim slowly slips more and more away from us. How do I cope with finding somewhere for Jim, loosing my job, giving up the family home of 30 years to downsize to something more affordable, and whatever else I may have to deal with which I haven't realised yet.
In all this time I have tried to find someone near me living the same problems who I could chat with over coffee or better still a glass of wine but I could find no one. Until recently we didn't have a formal branch but we do have now. So I am glad to find this site where at least I have found people of similar age with similar problems. I know all sufferers differ with the disease but it is a common ground and a great source of comfort to know I am not as alone as I have felt over the past couple of years.
If anyone has any help or knowledge of provision for younger patients I would be grateful.
Many many thanks Carole