Drought July 28, 2013

My bones are picked clean. The buzzards of fatigue and stress, self loathing, contempt have ravaged my skeleton and left no tiny little morsels of kindness, toward myself or toward him. He continues his inexorable slide into the vast emptiness of the Alzheimer's desert. He stands, motionless in that space until directed to sit, to stand, to walk. His shuffling gait getting more palsied, weaker, slower. I scream myself hoarse: at him, at me, at the universe. I scream so loud and so long, I see spots before my eyes. You would think, smart girl that I thought I was, that I would know how awful I will feel about my screaming when he's gone. But you see, I DO know this; I just can't seem to help it. I want to punch something all the time. There are mars and scars and holes in my house bearing testimony to this. It is actually no surprise I am so accident prone. It helps to be with others, not so alone in his care. It helps me monitor my own infantile reactions and gives him someone with a little distance who can be always warm and kind. The only advice I get from professionals seems to be about how to engage him and/or how not to judge myself. I flat don't want to do the former, and cannot possibly do the latter. I want to be free of all this. The constant, never ending need, the waste management, the pitying looks from others, the obvious end of my rope for me. I am sick to death of all of it. I am tired of hearing my own whining. Perhaps that's why I scream.....to hear something different coming from my lips?!

The Abyss July 21

As I move along the inexorable ruler of time, I trust my elders less and less. I yearn to be with younger folks...especially my own family as they have the most appreciation for me. Elders can no longer be trusted to be there. To fool the vagaries of death's sure grip. They will fall off that moving sidewalk of life, right in front of you, right when you need them most. No, they are not to be relied upon. Look to the youth to feel happy, reasonably secure and satisfied. Although their company is not absolutely fulfilling either. They are tentacled to the demands of their own places in time. They must provide. They must oversee their young. They have less actual free time to just be, to live in the moment. Hmmmmmm...the very young then? They are remarkable to be with, to study, to watch develop and learn to think. But it is a singular avocation. They can't return the favor of deep thoughts acquired through experience and over the full spectrum of time's passage. That leaves the peers and when peers sicken and fall over like the elders, it is terrifying. Like a raven's wings, dark and broader than you would guess, a screaming sadness, a grief overcomes me. Perhaps I see a more distinct decline in him, perhaps I am juggling various prescription drugs in my efforts to sleep, to "..knit up the ragged sleeves of time." (sorry, Mr. Shakespeare) Perhaps it's that I started to read for the first time in a long time and the choice, "The Glass Castle," was so bleak and such a vision of strength in someone else's suffering, that mine pales by comparison. Perhaps it is the yawning clutches of death's grip I see in my old cat and occasionally in my beloved grand dog. Perhaps it is the loss of my beloved Aunt, who was so special that at 96 she still had hundreds of people at her funeral, mourning and keening their deep sense of loss, even as they tried to celebrate her long wonderful life, filled with wonder and service to others. It is most likely all these things together. But rulers and ravens aside, I am on a journey of unknowns and I am fighting hard for the faith to see me through.

Insights July 11, 2013

I am a certified psychometrician. I have another Masters degree in reading and language disorders. I have a PhD in organizational leadership. I am trained and skilled in conflict resolution. I am unusually kind and loving toward animals, all animals. I am pretty sensitive and decent to human beings as well. Can anyone help me understand how I can shriek myself hoarse, until I see stars, and verbally abuse the man I have been married to for 45 years, the father of my children? I understand his disorder. I realize he cannot help what he has become. I even have enormous empathy for his feelings of loss.....and yet..... I would really like to know and understand the size of anger that happens to me under certain circumstances...why do I want to leave him standing in traffic when he cannot learn or remember no matter how many times he's shown or how recently I've demonstrated, for example, showing him how to buckle his seat belt in the car. Not only can't he remember, he complains in such a way that he has decided it's all my fault. No matter what has happened, he self protects into "I told you that would happen.." So it's really all my fault. I think I must have been a princess all my life. Although I certainly have had the requisite amount of self esteem and the typical self centeredness that comes with that, I thought I had always been pretty sensitive to others and their needs. Maybe not. Maybe I have really been a codependent type martyr and only nice for what I could manipulate out of it for ME. Because I remain enraged at what has befallen both of us with this disease and I rail about it every day. Out loud.

Dreams and Nightmares June 23, 2013

He used to leave me breathless, running behind him, trying to keep up. He didn't mean to. He was absentminded, even then. His mind churning and considering, planning, thinking. Admiring the glories of color and substance on our long walks. Long, intimate conversations, not always about deep thoughts, but always dreaming, planning, sharing. I would complain that he needed to stop whistling and slow down! I would plead with him to notice that I couldn't comfortably keep up and couldn't engage well in our conversations, his long legs and restless energy making a mockery of my efforts. Oh how I wish I could run along behind him again! How I could hear that irritating whistle! Now, he shuffles aimlessly, tiny little three inch steps at a snail's pace. No whistling, no coherent language left. He mostly sits, stooped over, his eyes closed, his seat growing damp with the mindlessness of urine. He gets angry when I try to engage him in activity--this man who loved to walk!! He complains of fatigue if he has shuffled behind me in a grocery store for less than an hour. He gets irritated if I ask him to do anything at all, complaining exactly like he used to when he carried probably more than his fair share of our load.

I AM a doctor! June 23, 2013

I am running an unlicensed nursing home. I work full time here. Unpaid. No time off for bad behavior. One cat has kidney failure and needs subQ fluids given in a drip. Another has a thyroid disorder which currently is controlled by medicine which takes constant monitoring and blood checks to make sure we are actually controlling the thyroid and not killing her liver and/or bone marrow. One dog needs medicine to control anxiety and another to prevent bladder stones, to which he is prone and has had two surgeries to correct already. The other dog is essentially worry free, though she gets painfully constipated and needs help and watching. Then there's the old guy. He has no conscious language left. It no longer stops him from discourse efforts of course, but he makes absolutely no sense. And he has no idea what language means when he hears it. He no longer can safely do anything at all for himself. Wiping his bottom, washing his hands, brushing his teeth all require someone else's efforts if germs and dirt are to be cleaned away. I remain mad as hell about him, partly because he looks like my husband, and I can't stand that my husband is now some kind of pathetic dork. But also I think anger remains my safe go-to emotion rather than the screaming grief that actually consumes me.

Baby Steps

It's a wasteland of waste products and treatment. It's a miasma of mess. It's a folklore wolf land with rotten teeth and constant growling. You know what's way harder than wiping someone's bottom, who doesn't understand simple commands like bend over, like washing all the bed linens...and I mean ALL the linens, duvet, cover, pillows and their covers, comforter, both sheets, and pads every single day? It's doing all those things when you yourself are sick or not feeling well. All the good intentions, the new techniques learned in therapy, most of the kind thoughts are lost in the despair that you will never have a moment to yourself to rest, to recover, to pamper yourself to wellness. Never, that is, until you do have that time, and he is no more, and you are then suffering but also overwhelmingly guilty about those feelings. You know what's even harder than that? When you have had a long day of doing all that, and you yell out to him as he is about to flush his socks down the toilet, and he turns to you with those lost brown eyes and says wistfully, "Do you really hate me that much?" I find myself supremely accident prone lately. A broken foot, a chipped tooth, a cut lip, scratches galore, and bruises everywhere. I am dropping things, breaking things, pinching my fingers and stubbing my toes. Everyone does some of these occasionally. I am a study in constancy of accidents. Is it fatigue? Desperation? Depression? Self loathing? I spoke to a new therapist who was direct and helpful. Somehow in a few sessions with her, I could internalize the truth that we are not good at everything, that "it takes a village" reflects that we need each other. She also short circuited my "yes, but's" related to getting help for his care and I actually have those plans started. A very kind woman has started coming on occasions when I need relief and beginning in September will be coming on a regular basis. I have decided that I can no longer save money for when I can no longer take care of him by myself physically. I am already at the place where I cannot take care of him alone, emotionally. I am going to loosen the purse strings with the hope of relieving the heart strings and finding my husband again. I leap forward to an unknown future where my carefully squirreled away pile of nuts may not last or be enough. But I am alive now and in need now, so I leap in faith.

On the Breath

Something has happened to me. A primal scream ago I was losing my mind to grief. I had wrapped myself in insane levels of anger and was shaken with shame for my behavior toward the sweet soul of my lifelong partner. Somehow, some way, like a crab scuttling over the dark sands of the ocean floor, a small hope came sideways, slipping into the corners of my mind. It might be what is referred to as "acceptance" in this grief arena. An enormous weight has lifted from my heart, just ever so slightly, but in the weight of grief, any amount of relief is magnified in size and power. I am so grateful. Within this past week, I hit some kind of wall. My personal "yawp", as Walt Whitman would say. I was reduced to actual primal screaming. As I visited the various professionals I had made plans to see while home--the dentist, the doctors--a pattern of response came clear to me. They all witnessed our behavior and suffering and said the same thing. It was time to make various plans. Our neurologist said directly that it was time to look into a place for care that wasn't our own home. I was desperately grateful for the straight talk I heard from her and from the other professionals. It's not that I am ready to make plans quite this extreme yet, but it was somehow comforting to hear seasoned, experienced professionals acknowledge the degree of loss. Small, but huge, benefits ensued. Suddenly, though it was still irritating to tend to the chores of complete responsibility for another adult, my rage abated. My heart feels like it is daring to melt just a little, though I am aware that I will be vulnerable to more pain that way. At this point, pain is preferable to the agony of disappointment I have felt in myself, in my own inability to live up to my image of myself as a kind person. One major dilemma for caregivers is just this thing...our judgement of ourselves as we struggle to be more than what we are. This journey started with the drama of new loss, with an almost insincere grief (looking back) which was actually denial I think now. Following that came the growing realization of what we were into, and the full scale mourning and wailing. I got desperately tired of crying. Gradually my defenses came out in anger and in that valley I have been struggling for over a year. I think, and hope and pray, that I am coming out of that valley into acceptance. I know from experience in this journey that nothing is clear or complete in these stages. I will fall into fits of despair and will most certainly experience monumental anger. But I do feel a kind of peace this week that feels like a change, albeit small, but a seismic shift in my own mental well being. His sister called tonight and as I searched for things to tell her that I know she would enjoy hearing and that would make her happy, I told her about our new grandson. I shared with her that whenever I wanted to see Stew smile, all I had to do was show him the latest picture of the baby and he would light up inside and smile his old big smile. She started to cry and told me she was so desperately grateful that he had someone to love him so well and to take such good care of him. A few days ago that would have made me feel terrible as it was in such contrast to my own judgement of my care. But today it made me both surprised as I hadn't thought of that action being a kindness and also happy that I could make two wonderful people happy by my actions!