...all alone in the moonlight.

My office door at the church is right next to the receptionist desk.  This means that I hear everything that goes on there - every phone call she takes, every person that walks through, every time someone goes to the bathroom, not to mention how long they stay in there. Every time a delivery person stops by and nobody is at the receptionist desk, my door is the first one they stick their head into to get a signature for a package, or to figure out where they are supposed to go.  Which is fine, I don't mind, and I'm getting a crash course into the inner workings of how to run a church. Not that I need that for my career, but hey.

It also means that I'm getting pretty clear on what happens when and where in the building.  I know that Tai Chi is Mondays at 11am, and Chair Yoga is Tuesdays at 2pm.  And on Wednesday, the Alzheimer's support group meets in the parlor.

Last week a couple that have been longtime members of our church came in for the Alzheimer's support group.  The husband is in the  fairly advanced stages of the disease.  His wife is a strong woman, you can see it in her eyes, she is strong and determined and by God, she has a handle on this.  You can see it in the way she carries herself.  She reminds me of my grandmother, who called upon her own life skills as a nurse assistant and took care of my cancer-riddled grandfather for 10 years until he died in hospice, about 10 minutes before she arrived.

So this couple comes in, and at this point I'm not really aware of why they are in the church, I'm sort of listening through the door while working on email and so forth.  And she points him to the bathroom, and then she heads down the hall to to the meeting.

When he came out of the bathroom he kind of looked around, and then stood there for a minute.  And then I heard him ask the receptionist where his wife went.  She told him that she was probably down in the parlor for the meeting.

And then I heard him say, "Okay. Where is the parlor?"

This man has been in this building every week of his life for at least 20 years, probably longer.  And he doesn't remember any of it.

The receptionist just stood up and came around her desk and walked him down there, while I sat there at my desk, stunned, tearing up.

Alzheimer's disease scares me.  It scares me for what may come in my own family, in my husband's family, where it was not diagnosed in grandparents, back then it was just called senility or dementia, but that's probably what it was.  And it will possibly happen to my father-in-law, and my husband, and someday my boys.  Although, I really hope by then we've figured out a way to stop it.

Vist the Alzheimer's Foundation for more info, and donate if you can.

Comments

[clickmom]

My grandma had it bad at the end. It scares the **** out of me too. Eat your veggies, latest research says it is diet related.

[Dorothy's Husband]

similar to the other commenter, my grandma had it the last few years of her life. I didn't notice it until she was already in an "assisted living center" (see: place that smells like piss and has zero chairs with legs because everyone pulls up to a table in their own on wheels). What baffled me the most was how quickly it seemed to advance. I would stop in and see her about every month or two, but even between visits she was closing off more and more. A story I will share, though, and one that made me understand just how alive the person is on the inside: For about the last 4 years, she basically forgot everything - her name, her son's name, her grandkids whom she spent 20+ years seeing daily, everything. We would talk to her, though, as if she was still normal. Telling her everything and even repeating things. In the last year, she would just sit and literally stare at the wall with no expression. The last time I went to see her before she passed, I was pushing her (see rolling chair above) out to a common area to be with others as I was heading out the door. I was giving her a hug and telling her I loved her, etc. All of a sudden she looked up at me and said "thank you for coming, Greg." My Dad (her only son) was with me and it just about floored him. I actually took a step back and didn't know what to say.

That disease is incredible. According to the internet, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to eat more chocolate, drink more wine or play more sudoku to stave it off. So I say - drink up and indulge while we can!

[JMomma]

there is so much I want to say but I can't say it right now - still hurts to bad. I watch my loving wonderful Grandmother succumbing to this. And I'm scared that I'll get it too because it runs in the maternal lines of the family.
So I put on a brave face and sit with Grandmother and have her tell me stories because soon, she won't be here to tell me her story.

[SJ]

I fear this disease. It too scares the shit out of me.

I've noticed over the last few years that my Mother has become very forgetful. At first I just chalked it up to being overwhelmed and stressed out and simply just not able to organize her thoughts (she's very repeatitive in what she says) but lately I've noticed that it's getting worse. And I've noticed too that she's making more comments about 'not remembering' or 'losing her mind' or 'being forgetful'. Just last night in a phone conversation with her she repeated the same thing to me two times and I have to say that I'm really worried now that something is going on. I'm concerned.

I took a sociology class in college that required us to do some volunteer work and I picked an 'adult daycare' that literally watched the elderly during the day while their caretakers (their own children) went to work. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done and it's stuck with me till this day....