I remember when I bridled at the interchangeable use of Dementia and Alzheimer’s. This was back when Ralph’s diagnosis was MCI, Mild Cognitive Impairment, or may even slipping over in Mild Alzheimer’s. I clung to narrow definitions back then. The plaque build up his tests showed signified Alzheimer’s and served as my point of gravity. I could tell people, i.e. myself, that he had a specific physiological condition. I did not want him lumped into the big vague world of dementia. No, really, I did not want to think of him as “demented” as in the pejorative taunt “You are so demented.”
Now the boundaries between definitions matter less and less. While repetitive questions and conversations are annoying, Ralph’s memory loss feels routine except when a visitor comments and I recognize the behavior afresh through her eyes. As an echo to Ralph, or a habit I’ve picked up from him, I think I also repeat myself more.
As for Ralph’s general behavior, his passive has inertia has become, like the radio he listens to all day, the background noise of my own more active life. I come and go, I clean and cook, I talk on the phone and escape to my office, I mess with the grandkids. He sits and watches. We spend large swaths of time together in near silence.
I find I don’t really want more from him: I find most of our longer conversations, which occur while he watches me prepare his meals, deadening. He usually wants me to clarify some fact from our past that I have clarified many times before. As he gets entangled in what seems simple logic to me, as he repeats the same questions or commentary, I sense his desire to connect on the only wavelengths he has available. But I often resist, am short and evasive. I don’t want to face that he might be lonely and I could make him less lonely if I engaged back, if I were a little more loving and patient. A little less wrapped up in my own anxieties.
As for his dependence on me, it is really just another part of our routine I don’t notice anymore, especially when we are alone and I’m not comparing our relationship to others’.
Ralph’s condition is what it is, ever changing in small increments and this is the life we both lead, one I find myself adjusting to on a daily basis. I don’t have time or energy to worry about definitions now.
Everyone—and I mean everyone in the world right now—is sharing an experience in common. We are all members of the community of isolation. We all use our phones and email to reach out to each other, to family, to friends, to people we haven’t talked to in years. We are so glad to hear each other’s voices, but frankly there is less and less to say. “What’s new?” “Nothing much.” “The weather’s [fill-in-the-blank]” “I’m watching [fill-in-the-blank]” “I cooked some [fill-in-the-blank]” The calls are getting shorter. They are more and more like my conversations with Ralph have been for months, years.
A truth that has dawned on me this second week in c-hibernation: Living as an Alzheimer’s caregiver has made adapting to living in the time of Corona easier than it may be for others. Those of us who are caregivers, like those of us living on the Alzheimer’s spectrum, have grown used to an approach to day-to-day life that prepared us for this time of grim uncertainty.
We know monotony and repetition, we know the feeling of limbo and the sense that things will probably get worse, we know the slow drip of dread. We also know how to deal with a reality we can do nothing about but can mitigate with small daily behavior.
We know how to problem-solve when the problem is amorphous and how to live in close quarters with another person we can only control so far. We know how to subdue our darker instincts—the annoyances and irritations that build into furies so easily. We have learned how not to lash out.
Now that Ralph and I are more or less settled into our new home (ignoring the dozens of boxes that aren’t getting unpacked because there’s nowhere to put the contents until we get shelving, which could be a long while), we are living a life not so different from our life before c-hibernation.
Every morning Ralph asks the same question,” Anything happening today?” and everyday, no matter what I answer, he follows exactly the same routine: breakfast, sit with the dogs while reading, a nap, lunch, a nap, sit with the dogs reading, supper, reading, sleep. Maybe there’s a little bit of exercise thrown in, and a shower, if I push. But this is the same routine he’s followed for a long time. Meanwhile I follow my own routine of editing, writing, and managing what’s left of our real estate business Sure I can no longer take Ralph-breaks by escaping on errands or see friends, but I get about the same amount of exercise, I talk and text with friends incessantly, I watch the same bad escapist TV.
The big difference in our lives is that Ralph no longer smokes cigarettes. Oh, and his beer count has dropped from four a day to zero. The cessation of smoking was deliberate; once they saw lung damage, the doctors who previously said to let Ralph smoke, said no more. Ralph stopped cold turkey during his hospital stay and has not asked for a cigarette since. As for beer, I am not sure what happened, except he lost the habit. Habits are what guide Ralph’s day and once one is interrupted, it is out of his head. He is drinking a lot of milk instead. In solidarity I have stopped drinking Coke Zero, but my shift is only marginal, to diet-ginger ale. (I figure the ginger is good for me, right?)
So our new life—the city house that replaced the country farm as well as the new community restrictions on socializing or eating in the restaurants I was so looking forward to patronizing—is pretty much the same as our old life. Maybe quieter but also maybe healthier. I am strangely content, which of course makes me a little guilty. Except one thing I’ve learned in Memoryland is just when you start to feel at ease in your situation, the unexpected happens and usually not for the good.
Yes, it’s been months. Life with Ralph did not seem to be changing much, but now I think we are in a new stage that deserves recording.
In October Ralph was accepted in a highly respected local ACE program for those with Alzheimer’s. I had added him to the waiting list several months earlier. on the suggestion of caregivers who I had a feeling Ralph was not ready to be in a group that acknowledged the members have Alzheimer’s but I was warned that it can take years before someone is accepted and I figured that by then he would be ready.
When the call came that there was an opening, I wasn’t sure what to do, but I talked to others in my support group whose spouses had been in the program and they all recommended I try it out. So for the last month Ralph has been attending three days a week. Each four hour visit includes some combination of physical exercise, mental games like trivia, visits with the preschool children in the same facility, music with visiting musicians, art projects, and lunch, snacks and conversation.
The first week or so Ralph was as enthusiastic as he gets about any activity these days. Then one afternoon he came home complaining that he found the group depressing. Evidently, as I learned later from a volunteer, one of the members had become weepy as people talked about their pasts.
He began to get resistant and say it was a waste of time. When he complained that he didn’t do anything while there, I showed him the note handed out after each session spelling out that day’s events; invariably Ralph is specifically mentioned as an active participant. I told that he seemed more energized now. And he generally came around to the idea that getting out and seeing people—he actually did talk specifically about Mamou, a tall distinguished looking man I’d noticed as someone who seemed to be at Ralph’s cognitive level—was better than sitting in a chair all day everyday even if there was no other specific value. I told my support group of his resistance and they agreed I should push him to continue despite his resistance.
But then a combination of doctor appointments I couldn’t reschedule and Thanksgiving recess meant Ralph missed over a week of meetings. This morning when I told him he was going back, he couldn’t quite remember what the program was, but then he became indignant and flared up in stubborn anger at the idea.
“Those old people have mental problems. They are depressing. I won’t go.” He glared at me from deep in his chair that he had no intention of leaving. I told him all the reasons to attend I always tell him (without actually using the word Alzheimer’s), but he was adamant. I remembered times when my children resisted going to preschool or other activity as toddlers. Only they were small and I had physical control. Ralph weighs 200 pounds. I didn’t quake before his anger but I did cave.
At 9:30 I emailed the leaders and said he would not be there when it began at ten and that he didn’t want to continue so we were giving up his place. He watched me type, asked why it was taking me so long, reiterated that he didn’t want to go.
Reluctantly I hit send.
“What did you say exactly. I don’t want to shame anyone.”
“Just that you had decided not to continue.”
“Do you think I should keep going?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I listed the same set of reasons I had listed all morning and that he had rejected.
“I don’t mind going. It’s as good a way as any to spend my time.”
Quickly, and with some embarrassment for myself, I emailed again that Ralph had changed his mind and would be there after all. Then we got in the car.
Usually I drop him at the front door, but today I walked in with him just to see and make sure the leaders got my second message. They had and as I left Ralph didn’t bother to say goodbye. He was too busy chatting with his Mamou.
Frankly the morning depleted me. And I have a feeling more mornings like this are coming my way.
I haven’t been posting much lately because our life with Alzheimer’s has been sloping so gently that there is little about Ralph’s situation I haven’t already discussed. However, last weekend was a noticeable blip on the static screen of our physical and emotional schedule.I continue to ponder the experience and what it says about Ralph and me now. In November Ralph’s oldest friend Jim had died in Atlanta. Ralph and Jim met in high school and although their lives had moved in somewhat different directions, the two remained friends and saw other regularly over the years, at least until Rick’s cognitive decline, along with our move to Nola, made Ralph less interested in keeping up with anyone. Somewhere along the line he lost Jim’s phone number, but during the height of Covid I messaged Jim through Facebook suggesting he call Ralph. I didn’t hear back directly but asked Ralph frequently over the next few days if they’d talked;. One afternoon he nodded, “Yes, we talked this morning,” but showed no memory of or interest in the conversation. Thinking back, I could kick myself for not checking his phone right then and saving Jim’s phone number I did neither, big mistake. When Jim’s distraught widow contacted us to say he’d died, I was the one who talked to her at length, but Ralph was visibly shaken Ito a degree I had seen only once before—when my father, whom Ralph loved from the moment they met, died
I tentatively brought up attending the memorial scheduled for January. Jim’s widow made it clear it would mean a great deal to the family for Ralph to take part. I have learned (the hard way) not to push Ralph into activities—even those I think would be good for him—and to let him set the pace. But Ralph seemed enthusiastic. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Of course as the day approached Ralph’s enthusiasm waned. He’d forgotten we were going, only sporadically remembered that Jim had died. Still, he passively went along when I reminded him the night before and again Friday morning that we were driving that day to Atlanta for the Memorial Celebration at Manuel’s Tavern the next afternoon.
Manuel’s Tavern, a bar known as a gathering spot for liberal and leftist activists was a fixture of Ralph and Jim’s youth as political hell-raisers. In fact both were banned from the bar at different times. (I don’t know why Jim was; Ralph was banned because he foolishly brought his mother, whom I’ll euphemistically call a character, and she got into a fight with another patron.) Jim had stayed politically active; Ralph had become a entrepreneur, even briefly flirted with libertarianism before returning to the liberal fold. Except for Jim, he had lost contact with his old comrades.
During the eight hour drive Ralph veered between “I am dreading this” and “I wonder who will be there” He tried to dredge up names of old (literally) radicals from the sixties, most of whom I didn’t know since I met Ralph in the early 1970s while we worked at an underground paper called the Great Speckled Bird. Aside from Jim’s family, the only people I knew we would be seeing were Ralph’s first wife and her husband; I’d been emailing with her. I was beginning to wonder if I’d made a mistake dragging him so far. Then we checked into a small hotel in what used to be a flop house in our old neighborhood and discovered the hallways were lined with framed covers of the Bird. It was an eerie beginning.
The memorial celebration itself was intense but meaningful. The first thing we saw walking in was a prominently displayed picture of Jim as a young man, a photo Ralph had taken. Jim’s widow acknowledged in her speech how much it meant to her that Jim’s oldest friend had traveled so far to be there. Ralph nodded and murmured agreement as she and Jim’s sons discussed Jim’s life. And when one of his sons brought up the influence Jim’s mother Noreen had had on all their lives Ralph teared up. Noreen had been like a second mother, introducing him to ideas and conversations, but more important giving him the emotional support,
he’d never had in his own home. After the speeches he talked to Jim’s widow and two of the sons at length with graciousness and heartfelt emotions. This was a Ralph I seldom see, and frankly seldom saw before Alzheimer’s.
“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” he said as we walked to the car. I was deeply moved.
Yet fifteen minutes later, when a friend we met for dinner asked him about the afternoon Ralph shrugged, “A waste of time; nobody talked about
“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” he said as we walked to the car. I was deeply moved.
Yet fifteen minutes later, when a friend we met for dinner asked him about the afternoon Ralph shrugged, “A waste of time; nobody talked about Jim.”
Since then he has not mentioned our trip but every so often asks either “Who died again? Or “So what did Jim die of?”
Meanwhile, the night after the ceremony I learned that my oldest friend, whom I’d known practically from birth since our mothers were best friends, had finally succumbed the cancer that he’d been fighting for over a year. It was not a surprise, but his widow sounded disconsolate. And today, as I was writing this post, I was interrupted by by my phone beeping—another close friend calling to say her husband had died unexpectedly two days ago. She described herself as numb.
Death is obviously on my mind. But not only death. Also the complexity of marriage, the complicated grief of the widows. And the complicated maze my marriage has become, the rare but real glimmers I get of Ralph’s true self punctuating the gray twilight he inhabits most of the time. And how confused my own feelings become.
Ralph is fine. I have been slow to post lately, but not because of any crisis. Just the opposite. Our life might be too boring to describe.
In the first few years after Ralph’s diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Impairment, I watched every change he experienced, observing my own reactions as well. Every day was new, not necessarily in a good way but new nonetheless. I rushed to record for future reference the evolving “new normal”s, dots that graphed Ralph’s route from MCI into Alzheimer’s
That urgency has dissipated. Ralph’s life is altering more slowly for now. His set routine has not varied for months. The morning pills, the coffee, the book reading, the radio, the dog, two afternoons of playing music plus a little practicing here and there when I push him, early dinner at home, a little reading, sleep. If anything we have been in a rut, but ruts can sometimes be a good thing. At least we have found a rhythm that is working.
We do not do a lot together the way other couples our age seem to. Ralph doesn’t watch TV, he is loathe to take even a short walk, he doesn’t enjoy eating in restaurants so socializing with more than a few people. I find I tell him less and less about the friends I’ve made since we moved, the activities that involve me. But there have been exceptions. When his son visited from California with two of the older grandkids, Ralph had a ball, playing music and coming out to eat several times.
We actually took a short driving trip to visit his old fishing buddies and their wives for three days. Ralph had his limits, preferred to stay alone rather than sit with the others on the beach at times. But he had a wonderful time while we were there and held his own in telling well-worn fish tales. Of course, he forgot the trip as soon as it was over, even as we were driving home. What I think he loved best in fact, was the actual drive—sitting in the passenger seat, having my undivided attention and listening to oldies on Pandora. He even agreed to take a detour on the way home to drive through an arts community I’d heard about. It was the kind of place I’d love to walk around and explore on foot, but I knew that would be pushing Ralph’s envelope to far. And that was fine. I envision more short driving excursions, maybe with a stop here and there, maybe not.
The thing is, now that life has been tailored so closely to Ralph’s needs, I feel less strain. (At least about him; there is still the world to worry about and my own neuroses.) Ralph seems if anything less demanding, maybe because I’ve accepted his level of need. Life feels oddly peaceful.
Of course the last time I felt this calm about our relationship was about 12 years ago, just before his memory started to go obviously downhill and our world turned upside down. But for now I’m going to wallow in our rut for all it’s worth.
Ralph and I are back into a routine after our rocky summer and landed on another plateau of what is normal. The changes I noted over the last months have set don’t bother me so much. And there has been a positive development. Ralph now plays music not only in his therapy sessions but also once a week with a neighbor our age who has been teaching himself the harmonica. The neighbor and his wife are newcomers to Nola and have become what I never expected Ralph and I to have again—couple friends. While our two husbands play music together, we two wives share a glass of wine around the corner. Having witnessed Ralph get agitated at an unfortunate outing to a restaurant, the couple seem undaunted, particularly since we usually meet in our sun room where Ralph is much more at ease and therefor his most cognitively alert, charming self.
So Ralph is happier these days, as am I. So I take more time to ponder the larger issues. And what I find myself thinking about lately is trust. Trust in a marriage is always an issue. Trust as a caregiver spouse brings up another complexity altogether.
In our pre Alzheimer’s marriage, we had a lot of problems but trust was not high on the list. We never cheated on each sexually. Even when we hated each other, we used up too much emotional energy in our relationship to have any left over for others. Our general modus operandi was to argue, sometimes with alarming openness. Several friends whose marriages fell apart after seeming much calmer than ours have said maybe being so openly angry at time saves Ralph and me. Maybe? Ralph was nothing if not straight forward and vocal, sometimes loudly vocal, in his views, but I could be secretive, nursing grievances and fears I couldn’t bring myself to share. As we bickered our way toward making decisions together, I didn’t always trust his judgement and he often ignored mine. What I did trust in those days was Ralph’s competence. If he said he could fix the plumbing or make the business deal, I believed him.
Well now the parameters have changed.
Ralph really has no secrets—he says whatever pops into his head, loving or nasty—but he also has no judgement. I have had to teach myself not to trust him to do anything. I can’t ask him to chores because 1., he won’t remember that I asked and 2., if he does remember he’s likely to mix things up. His once amazing mechanical aptitude in shot, he can’t read directions, and he has no capacity to problem solve.
On the other hand, he trusts me completely, a trust I am not sure I deserve. He assumes I will do what is best for him. I try but trust is a burden. I make sure his daily needs are met, but sometimes I hide in another room when I know he’d like my company. Sometimes I say I am going to run an errand when I am actually having lunch with a friend, or even our daughter.
And I no longer discuss with him any issue of substance, for instance tax issues, business decisions, or whether we may need to move to a different living situation in the next few years. He has no idea that I have been looking into options and I have no plan to tell him until such a move in imminent. I know that closing to keep difficult problems from him is largely for his benefit and that discussing decisions would have no actual benefit. He has no capacity to think through or even follow and would only be upset. But I also feel a bit uncomfortable with power I suddenly can wield over his life.
This has not been an easy summer for me. The physical issues Ralph and I each faced were one thing, but I also found myself a bit overwhelmed.
For one thing, I found myself dividing caregiving energy between Ralph and my grandkids. The summer is difficult for working parents and I was needed more often than usual as a babysitter. I adore the two boys, but at five and one they are a handful. And while Ralph loves the boys too—and they certainly love their “Bop”—he is not helpful. If anything, I have to be on guard, aware of those rare but unfortunate occasions in the past when something they did ticked him off and he reacted at their level, like an angry child.
Now that school is back in session, my caretaking life is less splintered but I am still coming to grips with two other realities.
One is that Ralph is showing small but revealing signs of slippage. His memory of the past has become muddier, while the newest memories slip more quickly out of his grasp. Repetitive conversations are certainly not new, but he not only forgets but can’t quite unravel facts and idea as they’re presented. And his capacity to manage his daily life has weakened. He used to make himself a sandwich for lunch every day. Then it became necessary for me to tell him to have lunch. He’s never hungry unless I remind him he is (although so far he still remembers his desire for daily beer). Now I simply make his lunch. Feeding the dog used to be the one responsibility I could count on Ralph fulfilling. Now I feed the dog. I also make sure Ralph showers. And recently I realized that he puts back on his dirty clothes if I don’t make sure they’re in the hamper and clean clothes are at the ready.
But these changes are not noticeable except to me. He continues to make reasonable, even charming small talk with friends and strangers. And he is physically healthy. I know many other caregiver-spouses facing quicker, steeper descents, so I feel a little guilty complaining about life with still easygoing, still more or less functional Ralph.
But this summer, I felt depleted, less up to managing the daily grind of care. I have felt more lonely. And tired, the reason I have not written much here until now. I think I am coming out of a season of caregiver burnout.
I/We have been dealing with his cognitive impairment for ten years now. Ralph was diagnosed in 2013 but showed very clear symptoms a year earlier. Those early days were highly stressful; although Ralph was able to do so much more than he can now, his capabilities FELT jarringly diminished compared to what he was like before. Words like cognitive impairment and dementia sounded horrific and terrifying. Gradually we adjusted of course. I began to recognize that one day’s new normal would only last for so long before the next level of new normal set in. I adjusted as one set of skills after another disappeared, grass mowing, driving alone, driving at all, playing Jeopardy with the tv, watching tv. I learned to tamp down impatience and to lower expectations. I depended less and less on Ralph for practical help or for meaningful interaction until somewhere along the way we reached the tipping point where Ralph became completely a dependent and I became a caregiver more like parent than spouse.
Over these years I had moments of resentment and sorrow, but also of affection and connection. I also worked hard to maintain my identity. And I felt plenty of support; it didn’t hurt when others told me what a great job I was doing. Most of the last ten years, I’ve been basically in a pretty upbeat state of mind, and kind of proud of my ability to cope.
But sometime during this strained summer (perhaps exacerbated by unending heat and rain), my inner resources shriveled. I just felt worn out. I saw my life narrowing with Ralph’s. I felt angry and alone.
I can write this now because I am feeling better. All it took was a weekend in front of the computer doing bookkeeping of all things. Working with numbers took my attention away from everything else. This morning as I swam my early morning laps, I swished my arms through the water and suddenly realized I felt better, refreshed. I came home and called some friends to reconnect. I chatted with Ralph and stayed relaxed. Halfway through writing this post, I made his lunch and chatted with him some more before making sure he showered. And I still feel good. Hope it last at least a little while.
So today is the first day in a little over three months that Ralph and I are back to something resembling what I used to call our new normal but I guess is now our old normal.
First I had hip surgery. For two weeks Ralph was thrust out of his bedroom and his routine. My caregiving kids made sure he had coffee, beer and his pills daily, but he had to climb stairs for the first time in ages and he had to feed the dog every morning. He also got to spend more time than usual with his grandchildren. He seemed to thrive.
Just days after I was up and about, and our lives seemed back on track, Covid struck. The first week we had the the grandkids staying with us while their parents isolated. Then Ralph got sick. He was never dangerously ill but as I wrote about then, having Alzheimer’s made Covid that much more difficult. He was very weakened.
It took days after he was over the actual virus before he could be coaxed up for meals or to sit with the dog at least for short periods. And he was definitely mentally fuzzy, the same way he’d been after his illness two years ago. Then after only a few days of being upright he was back to bed stuffed up and red eyed. My daughter the NP said it was allergies, but fearing he’d had a Covid relapse (and petrified it could be some version of long Covid, which in combination with Alzheimer’s would promise a bad future for us all) I put my mask back on. Fortunately a Zyrtec/Flonase combo kicked in immediately. He tested negative
Unfortunately in a few days I started feeling ill, took a home test and was bright red ]positive. Ralph was still not wanting to get up. As soon as I saw the results, I cooked up a pot of soup, knowing the next few days would be rough. It’s one thing to care for someone sick, it’s another to feel ill yourself but have to care for someone.
I am lucky because I never did get very sick, but I don’t think I was exactly what you’d call a loving caregiver. I made sure he had his pills and his meals—and his beer—but otherwise he was on his own. Not that he minded. I wasn’t nagging him to get up and about.
I have been out of isolation for two days now. And this morning Ralph went back to music therapy for the first time in close to a month. Last night he asked for a new book to read, again the first time in a month.
So maybe we are returning to the old normal.
But I can’t help thinking that ten years ago neither physical nor mental problems were on Rick’s radar, or mine. I had a busy social and creative life. Ralph was revelling in his life as Mr. Outdoorsman, mowing and caring for his cattle on a daily basis, going on fishing trips with his buddies every chance he got. As an empty nester couple we were actually getting along and planning—fantasizing as it turns out—all kinds of adventures.
Yep, Ralph got Covid. And luckily it has not been life threatening. But the last few weeks have been “interesting” to say the least. In part because Ralph was the last to fall from our family outbreak:
Several Thursdays ago (I’ve lost track of time) Granddaughter A had her high school graduation Ralph did NOT attend the ceremony or celebratory dinner. I did, along with her three parents and various other relatives. It was a lovely day. Over the weekend A attended graduation parties, then spent a special evening with my daughter and son-in-law
That Monday A tested positive. Not terribly sick.
On Tuesday my daughter tested positive. Very sick but went on anti-viral meds which helped
On Wednesday my son-in-law tested positive. Very sick but went on anti-viral meds which helped
On Friday the one-and-a-half year-old tested positive. Not too sick, but he couldn’t really tell us.
On Saturday Ralph tested positive. Very sick. But like the baby, he really couldn’t articulate well.
Everyone but the baby is fully vaccinated. Everyone but the baby masks. The two left standing, five-year-old mini-Ralph and I, are still wearing masks around each other; we’re basically not allowed to be around anyone else in the family until tomorrow.
The thing is, Ralph had not been anywhere, and once A was positive, precautions wen into high gear—masks, washing, and quarantining. Over and over I told Ralph to stay in his room and never never to leave it without wearing his mask. The only people he came in contact with at all were me, Mini-Ralph and the baby since they had to stay with us once their parents and sister got sick. And I don’t think he was ever around them for more than a few minutes at a time before I shewed him back to his lair. But Ralph did wonder out of his room unmasked occasionally. While I always caught him it was not always immediate and those few minutes mattered. That baby who was not masked was the innocent culprit. He is too hard to resist. I know I snuggled him. And Ralph must have too. But I was never unmasked. That might be the difference—or it might be pure luck.
In any case, Ralph’s Covid has been difficult for him because he doesn’t understand exact and has complicated life in general for the rest of us, especially my daughter the nurse practitioner who has basically banished me and Mini-Ralph to the second floor (a bit of a problem given I’m still not quite as strong as I’d like on my new hip) and taken over Ralph’s care.
Fortunately over her Covid symptoms (but still masked), my daughter has been sleeping on the living room couch and caring for Ralph while her husband, also post symptoms, cares for the baby at night. They are also back to their jobs, taking turns keeping the baby during the day using up PTO. (A is fine by now, and back at her job.)
Ralph went on the anti-viral meds as soon as he tested positive, but whether they are helping or not is impossible to tell. I haven’t actually seen him, except from a half closed doorway. I do talk to him regularly but
He doesn’t remember how he felt the day, or hour, before so there is no point of reference. He knows he’s sick but keeps forgetting it is Covid and will ask me what is wrong with him.
He always has a cold this time of year and has been stuffed up for weeks and weeks—I was testing him regularly even before the family outbreak just in case. He is if anything less cold-like than he was, but he is thoroughly listless.
He embraces his listlessness, which breeds more listlessness. So even as other Covid symptoms abate, his lack of energy continues because it always is there. His favorite activity is sleep under the best of circumstances.
The anti-Covid medication gave him stomach issues that others I know also suffered but could deal. Ralph had more issues because he is so passive about his personal habits under the same best circumstances as above. Or because he had to stop taking some of his normal drugs.
I am taking over Ralph from my daughter on Sunday—and sending Mini-Ralph home to his folks. Ralph will be past the infectious stage by then, although masks will be worn. I am a bit nervous but also ready. I am also thinking that barely over two years ago, just before our move to New Orleans, he had to be hospitalized with a blood infection; afterwards his cognitive skills declined sharply and never full returned to their pre-infection level.
I’m at the dining room table doing my morning’s bookkeeping when the phone rings. It’s Ralph calling from the bedroom, forty feet away.
Have you seen my brown belt?
No.
When was J here. He must have taken it. J is our son and Ralph has decided that anything he’s missing has been taken by J
J has been gone for two weeks and you wore it yesterday.
Well I can’t find it.
I walk through the kitchen to the bedroom and find the belt in Ralph’s closet.
The next night I’m watching tv in our bedroom after dinner when the phone rings.
It’s Ralph calling from the den where he’s been reading.
Have you seen my belt.
Weren’t you wearing it all day.
Well I can’t find it. J must have taken it.
J has been gone for weeks.
I turn my head to glance into the bathroom and see the belt hanging on the towel rack.
The phone rings in my car as I’m about to pull out of the driveway on my way to the grocery store the next morning.
Have you seen my belt.
Obviously misplacing a belt is no big deal and only a notch away from losing a cell phone or reading-glasses as I do all the time. What disturbs me is not the losing but Ralph’s unshakable certainty that someone, specifically our son, has taken the belt.
The stolen belt is Ralph’s current fixation, but there have been many others—his broken tractor back when he was actually still able to operate the tractor, the tools we left behind when we moved, the whereabouts of our savings, and on and on. In each case he rubs at the problem like a worry bead and blame becomes the only explanation that soothes him. Luckily, so far, he has never turned his blame spotlight on me even when, as in the case of the tools, I was probably the culprit.
While his list of fixations has been lengthening and taking more and more of his mental space, Ralph’s overall grasp of memories has weakened. I am not talking about the short term stuff everyone associates with Alzheimer’s. Yes, he repeats conversations over and over; and yes, he often can’t remember if he’s had lunch or fed the dog or brushed his teeth. But he also has increasingly less grasp on those older memories I expected him to be enjoying now.
We’ve all heard that people with Alzheimer’s are good at reminiscing about their past. Well not Ralph. Although he’ll still occasionally ask about an old friend, he seldom connects a story to the name any more. He has several fixed stories in his head from the past, some of them a bit off kilter. (Remember when we used to listen to Leonard Cohen regular program on NPR? he’ll ask regularly.) And beyond the boundaries of those fixed stories lies a memory desert. There are so many tales he used to regale me with about his childhood and his life before we met that he no longer remembers. I am pulled up short with shock each time he looks at me blankly when I bring up the time he did this or that. What must that blankness feel like from the inside?
It now occurs to me that maybe I need to see Ralph’s fixations as mental oases that offer him subject matter to mull over and talk about and fill an emptiness he must find scary. I will try but I can’t promise I won’t still get annoyed when the next phone call comes and I have to defend innocent J.
The last few weeks definitely created a change of pace in our lives. After I came home from my hip replacement surgery, I was basically unable to do much of anything for several days except walk, with a walker, to the bathroom and the kitchen table. My daughter took over for the next week—she organized and cooked meals, kept Ralph on his schedule and trained him to sleep in an upstairs bedroom, made me rest and then rest some more.
When my daughter went back to work, my son came for the next eight days. He maintained a similar routine although by then I was moving a lot more, in bed less and transitioning from walker to cane. He set up an office for me downstairs and solved myriad computer issues I’d been having.
Both son and my daughter prepared elaborate, surprisingly delicious meals that took into account my new low-sodium blood pressure diet. They spent lots more time talking with me than I usually get. They brought me hot tea before I asked. Meanwhile, the post-surgery pain was much less than I anticipated, requiring only Tylenol and muscle relaxer. I listened to books on Audible, binge watched the television my son had set up in the downstairs bedroom and did my very easy physical therapy exercises.
In other words I not only got a new hip but enjoyed a rather luxurious two week stay-vacation.
As for Ralph, he got to sleep later than I usually allow, didn’t have to clear the dishes after dinner, and—not that he talked to them very much—definitely enjoyed having our son and daughter hanging around. In fact, he still has not quite ire-adjust to the fact that my son isn’t here, asking several times daily, “Where is J. Has he gone back to New York?” But any change in routine is difficult for Ralph, even small tweaks in what time he eats dinner, so he also became slightly discombobulated, slightly grumpy and more than slightly anxious.
For the last week we have been back on our own. I still use a cane outside but am walking cane-free around the house. When asked, Ralph loads the washing machine and dryer for me because I am still not quite able. And he carries in groceries that I cannot lift. But otherwise I don’t ask for much more because, frankly, it is easier to do most tasks myself even at half energy. Since stairs are something I do only with care, I still make him sleep upstairs but still let him sleep later than I used to. He has made his own adjustment. He asks me daily how my leg is and wants to chat more. Or maybe I am just available more since I can’t escape upstairs to my office like I used. (He has interrupted me repeatedly as I’ve been typing just now.). He’s actually agreed to walk around the block with me once or twice; we move at about the same pace for now and have about the same stamina, although I hope for my sake that will change.
What I have realized over these weeks is that I am lucky. I have a new hip that means I will be able to resume a more active life that includes walking, shopping, visiting museums, etc. I have genuinely supportive children. And to speak in bare practical terms, l can pay someone weekly to do a light clean and change of bed linens (no small thing since this is one activity I cannot imagine doing at the moment and know Ralph can’t).
Most important, I have been reminded that all in all Ralph is still holding steady, still able to function within his narrow parameters, as defined by our yard and his limited daily routine. His Alzheimer’s related limitations can be annoying, but they are not yet seriously debilitating. I want to make use of this time, once my leg is healed and my energy is back to normal, because it may or may not last.
ps. Shortly after posting this, I misplaced my cane and guess who found it–Ralph!
Ralph and I are about to enter new territory, at least temporarily. And for me at least it will be a new kind of balancing act, mental and physical.
Next week, exactly two years to the day since moving here and one year since I began a cycle of accelerating pain in my left leg and backside, I am getting a hip replacement.
The good news is that hip surgery is usually very successful and I am thrilled that there is a solution to stop the pain and give me back most of my old mobility.
But every time the doctors describe what I will not be able to do during the recovery, I wonder how Ralph will fit into the picture. I will be the one heavily dependent on others for around two weeks and then have limited mobility for awhile—i.e. no bending more than 90 degrees, limited household chores, etc., depending on how quickly my body recovers. At that point I should be able to manage my own needs fine, with a little help, but will I have the energy to manage Ralph’s too? And I certainly can’t count on him for help.
Arranging my own immediate care has been easy. My son came last weekend to prepare the house, putting a TV in the bedroom for me, cleaning my car and moving furniture. My daughter, a nurse practitioner, is taking a week off to stay with me. When she goes back to work, my son will come back until my post-op check up. Reorganiing after-school care for my grandkids—I usually pick them up every day and keep them until their parents get off work—was not my problem but has been taken care of, fingers crossed.
As for Ralph, we are entering uncharted territory. He is clearly nervous, when he remembers the surgery is coming. Typically, his biggest concern is whether he might have the same problem. He also says he will do whatever I ask him to help. I have already taught him many times, each time it is the first, how to load the dishwasher and feed the dog. Actually the dog, who is learning to sleep in Rick’s office instead of the downstairs bedroom with Ralph, where I have re-installed myself to avoid stairs, has adjusted very well.
Ralph’s adjustment may be trickier. He functions best when he can stick to his routine of eat-read-nap. I am worried that after the first weeks, once I am back on my own yet not back to full strength, I won’t have the patience to keep that simple routine running smoothly. Intellectually I know the details will work themselves—his pills, his beers, the laundry, unloading the groceries, defrosting the stews and casseroles I have pre-frozen—but I have been obsessing because there is something deeper bothering me.
It showed up last week when I had two scares. One was over my blood pressure, which was worrisomely high when I was checked at a pre-op appointment. When I checked it again the following day the numbers were even higher, dangerously high, so high I was advised to take an extra dose of my blood pressure medicine and then when it stayed up high to go to an emergency room. Which I did, driving myself after telling Ralph I was just going to a doctor’s appointment. He barely looked up from his book. Fortunately the numbers dropped and I was home to make dinner. And the numbers have continued to drop so my surgery is still on.
One probably reason for the high numbers was an attack of high anxiety over the second scare: I was told that my surgery date was going to be changed causing all the plans I’d put into place to be scratched and leaving me alone with Rick and barely able to for five days. Fortunately my surgeon stepped in and said my family situation made schedule changes impossible. But for a while there, I was petrified. Even writing about the possibility gets my pulse rising.
The reality is that caregiver spouses have very little leeway. I want to relax into my recovery, and I will try—have books and movies at the ready—but part of me will be worrying about Ralph as much as I’m worrying about myself.
PS. As I wrote this I remembered that a less than a year after Ralph’s initial diagnosis I fractured my right ankle on black ice. Ralph was still driving then and actually drove an hour on his own to meet me in the emergency room. He drove me back to the hospital for surgery on the ankle weeks later and was a huge help in general during my five months off my leg. His reaction and behavior were in sharp contrast to his unhelpfulness, born out of fear and discomfort, when I had a mastectomy ten years earlier. Ironically, MC/Alzheimer’s has made Ralph a person who wants to help but has also ended up robbing him of that ability.
Alice in Memoryland 