From Eternity to Here
A long love story of many years is the best account of our relationship over our time together. Yes, it was unlikely—the farm girl from the South met this city guy from the MidWest. She was extremely outgoing, warm, always active. He was a little more shy and slower. But it succeeded, happily, those many years. Work and family with children were great and we were happy together. There was always communication and involvement with each other and many family & friends. And we were always in love. This could continue Eternally, yet we found ourselves Here!
This began with some unraveling of her functioning. She could not remember obvious things, got lost driving a car, missed meetings at work, and sometimes was very disoriented.
All of this was itself a confusing state. Why would she get a check from work & go to the bank to cash it? But then the envelope full of hundred dollar bills was hidden in the house. What did that mean? And, of course, where was it?
One time she dropped me off for a haircut and left to get a soft drink a couple of businesses away. Then the haircut was over but I could not find her. She did not answer her phone, despite repeated calling. Finally someone called me, a woman in an office a number of miles away. Where are you, she asked. So two hours after my haircut, the woman led her to where I was.
Her best friend at work kept track of meetings and appointments for her; as an administrator, she had much to attend to and managed to get to most with that support. It was clearly time to retire, but no one said the memory problems were the reason.
“Heartbreak” fits what we both felt. She knew something was wrong, but not quite what. Testing showed it to be a possible precursor to Alzheimer’s called Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), which is essentially a disruption of memory without much other difficulty. But she knew how her Mother’s late years with Alzheimer’s happened; that was awful. I suppose my heartbreak was worse, as this was a decline with no reversal or cure for the future.
Yet we managed to be happier than expected. Within a short time, it was labeled Alzheimer’s, a diagnosis that was clearly correct. We tried various healthy interventions and change seemed to slow to a halt. We felt elated that we were still in a happy place; joy prevailed.
BUT THEN months later there was a massive breakdown one specific day, a breakdown that extended into weeks and then months. That day we went to the Emergency Room; there was nothing that medicine identified. Yet this was a crisis. Andin the following time there were more serious moments. Wandering off into the neighborhood on a mid-Winter night, only to be found by a helpful unknown person who called me. More moments of anger at me for virtually no identifiable reason; usually at night. And other times that were somewhat paranoid and a few more drastically so.
Yet we could still be very loving with each other; bedtime was usually finally warm and happy. And for some months, our lives seemed to settle in. Often happy, then disrupted for less of our time by these strange moments.
One of her greatest happiness came from being around other people, more than just me. This led to eating out once or twice a day, which became a major expense. There were other social events and church, but not enough on a regular basis unless we ate out. This, and my increasing difficulty with leaving her alone in the house, led to having a company send women over to be with her a few hours on occasional days. It had potential, but she never quite liked being with them. As I saw it, this was a direct result of her continued social/emotional intelligence. These women really were not friends and they tried too hard to be friendly, asking lots of questions of her and generally failing to get at the heart of who she was.
We also went to a clinical psychologist, who developed an understanding of who we both were and of our relationship. One reminder for her was that we are all slipping with age and she is slipping a bit faster than some folks. She was reassured by him; this was a valuable and happy part of our life.
But then came the week from hell in late June into July. Why it all started I don’t know. We had just come back from a very pleasant week with two of her sisters and it all seemed happy. But suddenly evenings were very unpleasant. If I suggested something she did not like, she was angry and stayed so for some time. A few times she left the house very late in the evening. I followed her to be protective without confrontation; that only resulted in yelling and threatening to call the police. Once she tried to break into a neighbor’s truck for protection from me, though I had not said or done anything threatening. Then she went to the house of a neighbor who was still up; she tried to enlist the neighbor into her paranoid state. But the neighbor reminded my wife that she was experiencing Sundowner’s. Later in the week one night she was mad and left the house without my being aware at first. Then I searched for more than an hour after midnight and finally called the police. A crew arrived and immediately found her. Was she hiding from me as I searched? Probably.
And finally in that week, she had another angry spell in the evening, then went to bed in another room. I was awakened by a huge crash which seemed like she threw something down the stairs of the split level house. But she herself had crashed down the stairs. Missing the first step of 5, she went head over onto the tile kitchen floor. Bleeding from wounds in her face with other severe bruises led me to call 911. Then she yelled at me not to touch her. The police came first, ordered me to tock up the dog (who had never been unfriendly) and demanded to know what happened. This was heartbreak of the serious kind.
From this final event came the necessity of finding a better arrangement. After hospital and rehabilitation, she went into a memory care facility. More about that on our next entry.