It is really important to get a diagnosis because if the divorce actually happens there often is no one to care for that person anymore and they could easily die or starve to death at some point in the near or far future because they are not competent to care for themselves soon after this begins.
Both Alzheimers and Senile Dementia (closely related) are fatal diseases and in some way remind me of the symptoms of AIDS in that the person slowly regresses back through their young adulthood, childhood, babyhood and finally usually go out in a coma with a death rattle and then death.
So, if this person is a loved one or mate or friend, try to get them diagnosed so they aren't wandering around talking to themselves on the streets or having worse problems than that.
My first inkling that something wasn't quite right with my mother happened in 1999 when I took her and my then 10 year old daughter to Scotland to see where her father and mother grew up, her mother in Clydebank and her father in Ayr I think it is spelled both near Glasgow. She was okay in England and Scotland but when I flew her to Germany to meet my son and his friend and to rent a 6 passenger motorhome for us all to drive through Austria, Switzerland and northern Italy she literally never got out of the motorhome from Munich to Italy and back. She was over 80 at the time and I didn't understand the concept of "Transfer Trauma" which is what sometimes happens when you take an elderly person out of a familiar environment either.
Then when we flew back to London for several days there she wouldn't leave the basement hotel room even when we were given one with a view and just sat and watched English TV which sometimes is sort of like watching Grass grow if you have ever watched a lot of it. But, maybe English people might feel that way about PBS stations too maybe.
So, I was sort of angry with my mother for making this trip to Europe so difficult for me of having to always buy food to bring her it from wherever we were eating as a group or having to dump the bathroom stuff from our motorhome because she wouldn't go anywhere else because she Never left the motorhome.
But, it wasn't until a few months later back near San Francisco where I live most of the time where it got really strange. I took her for a walk along the coast and all of a sudden she started beating her hand on the inside of the door panel and yelling "I want the words!" over and over which meant she wanted to know the words to the song so she could sing along. I told her she had never heard the song before because it was new. This didn't impress her at all and then I knew both she and I were in trouble.
And it all progressed from there to where she put a tupperware bowl on her stove and turned the burner on or some sequence like that and then flames of liquid plastic went down the stove for 12 to 24 hours while she sat at the kitchen table and prayed that it didn't burn down her home.
At that point we had to put her into an Senile Dementia and Alzheimers facility because my wife didn't want her to burn down our home too.
This was the single worst thing I ever had to deal with in my life because of the way the laws are here in the U.S.
Almost anything would have been preferable to me to doing what I had to do. But, in the end "LIfe is for the living" and I had to prioritize my daughters born 1989 and 1996 and my son born 1974 over my mother which was a horrible thing to be forced to choose which relative you are staying alive for in the first place.
But, in the end we did the right thing even though it was the worst horror movie I could ever imagine having to put my mother in a facility of people mentally dysfunctional. I hope you never have to deal with this problem simply because many children don't survive this sort of thing when this happens to their parent or parents even if they are fully adult children for a variety of reasons.
Just remember (for your own survival) that "Life is for the living" and those who you know are dying in some ways are no longer among the living except maybe conditionally in their transition.
Alzheimers and Senile Dementia are fatal diseases and no one survives this. So, prepare yourselves for your relative to die slowly or quickly once they are diagnosed because it is coming.
I thought my father dying of bone cancer was bad but this was 100 times worse for me to survive psychologically for a variety of reasons.
If you see a friend or relative trying to support their relative with alzheimers or senile dementia do all you can to be supportive but expect strange psychological reactions from them going through this if they are very close with who this is in their lives.
This is the worst thing I ever had to deal with in my life and I have seen some crazy shit in the last 70 years that I had to survive.
Of it all, this was the worst thing ever to try to physically or psychologically survive.
Remember this, and if it is someone close to you gird yourself because this is much harder to deal with than it looks by far.
It is sort of like going into a war zone where many people don't survive from my experience.
Luckily I had two young daughters and my older son and my wife that I had to help and take care of kept me alive and functional.
The people that sometimes check out with their ailing relative are unmarried and don't have many friends.
So, when that close person is gone they see no reason to continue living. This is an ongoing problem with Alzheimers and Senile Dementia around the world.
IN some ways as cruel as our system is it tends to keep the ones without Alzheimers or senile dementia alive by separating them from the ailing relatives. By doing this the healthy relatives don't die or go crazy with their relative or friend slowly or quickly checking out.
It is logical to separate people who are going to stay alive from those who are not going to die because it keeps the living alive instead of just dying with the dead and dying.
Believe me if you have to talk all day with a crazy relative because you are caring for them the likelihood is this is going to make you strange or crazy too over time. So, this is something to think about especially if you are married or have children you have to raise.
What's going to happen to your children if you lose it?
"Life is for the Living"
Keep saying this so you survive the Triage we all have to do to survive a loved one going through this to the end of life.
I"m using triage because you have to decide who is going to live and who is going to die because if you don't you might be one of the ones that dies in this scenario.
In my case my spouse and my children were going to live and my mother was going to die and I had to get used to this even though it was a terrible thing to deal with that I never expected in life.
One of my last interactions with my mother was saying to her: "MOM! your Grandson and I are here to see you!" and she made a farting sound with her mouth. She didn't believe me. This was my last verbal communication with my mother.
This is the kind of thing you have to deal with. There is really no one you know that you are saying goodbye to unless you can deal with your MOM or DAD being a child regressing slowly back into being a baby in the womb and into a coma and then death (instead of birth).
tri·age
trēˈäZH/
noun
- 1.(in medical use) the assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients or casualties.
verb
- 1.assign degrees of urgency to (wounded or ill patients).
Triage | Definition of Triage by Merriam-Webster
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/triage
Definition of triage. 1 a : the sorting of and allocation of treatment to patients and especially battle and disaster victims according to a system of priorities designed to maximize the number of survivors. b : the sorting of patients (as in an emergency room) according to the urgency of their need for care.Triage - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triage
Triage (/ˈtriːɑːʒ/ or /triːˈɑːʒ/) is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition. This rations patient treatment efficiently when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately.
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