My Alzheimer's story
Alzheimer's has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Though I have not yet been a caregiver for an Alzheimer's patient, caregivers and patients were part of my family's world throughout my childhood.
Years before I was born, my maternal great-grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease...I believe it was early-onset. I never met her, though she was alive and living in a nursing home until I was 9 or 10. Her condition had long since progressed beyond the point where she would have had any context with which to recognize me.
After she passed away, my mother told me a story about my great-grandmother, and her disease, that has haunted me since.
My mother's youngest sister died in a car accident before I was born. During the wake, my great-grandmother saw my grandmother, her daughter, crying. She turned to the person next to her and said, "I have no idea who that woman is, or why she is crying, but I feel so sad for her."
Maybe that's just a human reaction, to feel sad when you see someone else is sad, or maybe there is still an emotional recognition, a connection, after the memories have begun to fade. True caregivers could answer that question better than I can.
Growing up, I saw two close family friends care for their own mothers, who also developed the disease. I was too young, I think, to really see the wear-and-tear, or to understand the stress that accompanied all the hard decisions they made. A few years ago, however, these memories became more vivid for me as my family started to face a long unspoken fear: that my maternal grandmother would develop Alzheimer's, as her own mother had.
After a few months of mysterious pain, my grandmother's doctors discovered a tumor on her brain stem. While they believed it to be benign, they feared it would grow. We were all relieved when the surgery was complete, the benign status confirmed, and my grandmother seemed to be on the mend. We soon began to see, however, that her recovery was not progressing as quickly, or as smoothly, as we had hoped. She began to have memory problems, balance issues. We had always known that Alzheimer's had some genetic component. I watched as my mother and aunts and uncles waited, waited to see what was happening, waited to see what the doctors would say.
While the news wasn't good, it was better than we had feared; her symptoms were a result of fluid building up on her brain. She had another surgery to drain the liquid, and the memory problems and balance issues improved significantly. Our Alzheimer's scare had passed, for the time being.
As I've begun to explore the caregiver community online, I have been overwhelmed by the stories of Alzheimer's caregivers, people of all ages, facing an unbelievable challenge.
I hope some of you will share your own stories with Alzheimer's here on WEGO Health. One way to get started: write your own Alzheimer's story blog post. I hope you'll come back to this post and leave a comment with a link to your own stories!
Years before I was born, my maternal great-grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease...I believe it was early-onset. I never met her, though she was alive and living in a nursing home until I was 9 or 10. Her condition had long since progressed beyond the point where she would have had any context with which to recognize me.
After she passed away, my mother told me a story about my great-grandmother, and her disease, that has haunted me since.
My mother's youngest sister died in a car accident before I was born. During the wake, my great-grandmother saw my grandmother, her daughter, crying. She turned to the person next to her and said, "I have no idea who that woman is, or why she is crying, but I feel so sad for her."
Maybe that's just a human reaction, to feel sad when you see someone else is sad, or maybe there is still an emotional recognition, a connection, after the memories have begun to fade. True caregivers could answer that question better than I can.
Growing up, I saw two close family friends care for their own mothers, who also developed the disease. I was too young, I think, to really see the wear-and-tear, or to understand the stress that accompanied all the hard decisions they made. A few years ago, however, these memories became more vivid for me as my family started to face a long unspoken fear: that my maternal grandmother would develop Alzheimer's, as her own mother had.
After a few months of mysterious pain, my grandmother's doctors discovered a tumor on her brain stem. While they believed it to be benign, they feared it would grow. We were all relieved when the surgery was complete, the benign status confirmed, and my grandmother seemed to be on the mend. We soon began to see, however, that her recovery was not progressing as quickly, or as smoothly, as we had hoped. She began to have memory problems, balance issues. We had always known that Alzheimer's had some genetic component. I watched as my mother and aunts and uncles waited, waited to see what was happening, waited to see what the doctors would say.
While the news wasn't good, it was better than we had feared; her symptoms were a result of fluid building up on her brain. She had another surgery to drain the liquid, and the memory problems and balance issues improved significantly. Our Alzheimer's scare had passed, for the time being.
As I've begun to explore the caregiver community online, I have been overwhelmed by the stories of Alzheimer's caregivers, people of all ages, facing an unbelievable challenge.
I hope some of you will share your own stories with Alzheimer's here on WEGO Health. One way to get started: write your own Alzheimer's story blog post. I hope you'll come back to this post and leave a comment with a link to your own stories!
Tags: alzheimer's
© 2009 Created by Marie
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