JOAN’S BLOG – FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 2008 – WHAT WILL COMPANY THINK?

Tomorrow, our friends from Boston are coming to visit for the week. We have not seen them in exactly one year.

Considering what has transpired here in the past year (previous blogs tell the story), you would think they would notice a difference in Sid. My friend asked me about that when I spoke to her on Wednesday night. She reads my Blogs, and we speak on the phone every few weeks, so she knows the situation. Her question, which was perfectly legitimate, given the circumstances, set me off.

Before I relay the rest of the conversation, it is important that you know they will NOT be staying with us. They will be staying at their Time Share. Because they will see Sid probably 3-4 times during the week, for a few hours at a time, my answer was “NO, not only will you notice NOTHING different about him, by the time you leave, you will be convinced that I am the one who should be locked up under psychiatric care. You’ll probably believe that I am the lying drama queen my husband thinks I am.” (She’s been my friend for over 30 years, so she did not take offense at the frustration with which the words were spoken.)

In public, he can carry on a conversation sounding perfectly lucid and accurate, and because most people to whom he speaks, have no idea of the underlying symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease, he seems perfectly normal. As I have related in previous Blogs, even some of his peripheral doctors see nothing wrong with him. They have no idea that he forgets most everything they said by the time he is back in the car.

All four of us are going to Miami (It’s a 2 hour trip, and thanks to my friend’s husband, I DO NOT have to drive there) on Sunday to visit another old friend. Although she saw Sid briefly in December, she and her husband have also not spent time with him in a year. I will probably come out of this weekend looking like the biggest lying idiot on the planet.

And then, as is the plight of every Alzheimer spouse, at least until the disease becomes glaringly obvious, I will enter my home with no one around, and my husband will forget 95% of who said what when; ask me countless times who said what when; get a confused look on his face; get angry with me, because he will not believe what I tell him; and the cycle will continue. With no one there to see it, of course. Except the lying drama queen.

It is Patrick Toal’s (social worker from the Caregiver Cruises) words that help keep me going. He said that it is common until the disease is quite advanced for outsiders not to notice, and to always remember that WE, the caregiver spouses, know for sure what is going on. WE are not crazy, and we are handling the situation in a manner that is best for our spouses and ourselves. He told me never to doubt myself, no matter what others think.

MESSAGE BOARD TOPIC - THE LYING DRAMA QUEEN

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