I often feel guilty about this forum where so many people are doing it so much tougher than I am, and yet I still have days like today where I feel really down.
Mum and Dad are together in a Hostel specifically for Alzheimers patients - Dad does not have an AD diagnosis but is disabled and Mum (who has AD) was his full time carer, so now they are both in the hostel. That is one of the good things- that they are together. It is also good that it is a brand new, state of the art hostel and the carers are generally very good. I have support from my wonderful husband and my two sisters, so you can see why I feel guilty about being down - most of the TP people have a much tougher job than I do.
Mum is currently in a "good" phase, and oddly enough, these make me feel the worst. I think it is because I start to doubt the diagnosis, yet intellectually I know it is correct. Mum has always been a mad keen Scrabble player and still plays an extraordinarily good game - beat me three times yesterday. She came up with one 7 letter word, and also used the word "jocund"!!! How can she do that and yet have AD, I ask myself???
She can no longer score Scrabble - problems with addition and sometimes misunderstands the coloured squares (double word, triple letter, etc.), but yesterday she was completely "on the ball".
Yesterday she and I did their accounts together - I have POA and we "do the accounts" together to help her feel nothing has changed - usually I do everything and she just watches, but yesterday she insisted on writing the cheques, addressing the envelopes, etc. - and she didn't make any mistakes!!!!
I know that she cannot "recover" from this illness. Do other peope have experience of sudden improvements like this? It feels "surreal" that she seems to be (almost) back to her old self. . . ??!!!
My real guilt stems (I think) from wondering how long this (caring) will all go on for (and knowing no-one can possibly say) and wondering if I'll be able to keep going. When I see what others face, I feel as if I should be grateful for how fortunate I am (and I AM grateful!), but I still feel down and in need of support today.
Thanks in advance!
Nell
Mum and Dad are together in a Hostel specifically for Alzheimers patients - Dad does not have an AD diagnosis but is disabled and Mum (who has AD) was his full time carer, so now they are both in the hostel. That is one of the good things- that they are together. It is also good that it is a brand new, state of the art hostel and the carers are generally very good. I have support from my wonderful husband and my two sisters, so you can see why I feel guilty about being down - most of the TP people have a much tougher job than I do.
Mum is currently in a "good" phase, and oddly enough, these make me feel the worst. I think it is because I start to doubt the diagnosis, yet intellectually I know it is correct. Mum has always been a mad keen Scrabble player and still plays an extraordinarily good game - beat me three times yesterday. She came up with one 7 letter word, and also used the word "jocund"!!! How can she do that and yet have AD, I ask myself???
She can no longer score Scrabble - problems with addition and sometimes misunderstands the coloured squares (double word, triple letter, etc.), but yesterday she was completely "on the ball".
Yesterday she and I did their accounts together - I have POA and we "do the accounts" together to help her feel nothing has changed - usually I do everything and she just watches, but yesterday she insisted on writing the cheques, addressing the envelopes, etc. - and she didn't make any mistakes!!!!
I know that she cannot "recover" from this illness. Do other peope have experience of sudden improvements like this? It feels "surreal" that she seems to be (almost) back to her old self. . . ??!!!
My real guilt stems (I think) from wondering how long this (caring) will all go on for (and knowing no-one can possibly say) and wondering if I'll be able to keep going. When I see what others face, I feel as if I should be grateful for how fortunate I am (and I AM grateful!), but I still feel down and in need of support today.
Thanks in advance!
Nell