Tag Archives: alzheimer’s support groups

Alzheimer’s Friendship

Alzheimer's Spouse Issue, Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

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Last week I had lunch with a new friend.

A month or so earlier I received an email from E responding to a post. She mentioned that we once met at a support group meeting run by the Emory Brain Center. I didn’t recognize E’s name so wasn’t sure who she was; because of the distance involved, I attend the support group infrequently at best and haven’t been back for ages.

But as soon as I saw E in person, I remembered her. I remembered sitting across the conference table from an attractive woman whose name I didn’t catch and thinking  she is really angry—angry and exhausted—and what’s more, she’s willing to admit it! She had recently convinced her husband to downsize their home, only to realize in the selling, packing and moving that her husband was more incapacitated than she’d realized. Scrunched down in my seat, listening to E talk so honestly, I recognized that I was not facing my own complicated mix of anger, stress and protectiveness toward Ralph. E’s directness and her honesty were a truly liberating epiphany.

Now here we were over a year later, sitting in a café catching up, and as E said, it was “like looking in a mirror.” Our husbands had different careers but in many ways we shared similar lives before they were diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment within months of each other and began seeing the same neurologist at the Emory Brain Center. Now both men are enrolled in the same Merck study I have written about . They both are devoted to their dog. And E and I are both…. Well, we are that same complicated mix of stress and protectiveness.

As E and I sat and talked over our salads last week One of us would begin a sentence and the other would be able it finish it. We didn’t have to sugarcoat, we didn’t have to explain. The words poured out. Being with E was so relaxing.

We lingered and lingered and then we went back to E’s house and talked some more. I drove away almost giddy with excitement, the way I felt at ten or eighteen when I met a new friend.

When Ralph was first diagnosed, one of the vows I made to myself was that I was going to maintain my life, that I would keep my friendships. And I have. In fact I have a larger circle of friends and more active social life than I used to. I have worked at building a network, professional writer friends, volunteer organization friends, political friends, literary friends, movie going friends, fun and conversation friends, family friends.

And online friends through the Memoryland community—and it feels to me like a community—along with other caregiver/caregivee blog communities.

Now I have an actual Alzheimer’s friend.

CHANCE ENCOUNTER/MUTUAL SUPPORT

Caregiver/Spouse Issues, , , , ,

So there I was in a store at the shopping center looking for a cheap picture frame when I ran into a woman I have half-known for years. Our daughters were in school together at some point in the distant past but never actually played together. Susan and I run into each other occasionally at the grocery store. We’re always cordial when we meet and joke because we seem to have the same shopping schedule, but we barely know each other. She grew up in this small town; I’m a relative newcomer. She tall, blonde and well-mannered. I’m short, frizzy haired and socially awkward.

So after we said our usual brief hellos and asked about each other’s child, I moved down the aisle. A moment later someone called my name. I turned around and it was Susan smiling but looking slightly nervous.

She explained that she had seen my name on a group email address from a local Alzheimer’s support group I attend sporadically. For a moment I was a little shocked and almost defensive—I admit I have not quite figured out how to be totally comfortable acknowledging Ralph’s condition except to close friends—but then came the flash of recognition: She saw my name on that list because she was on it too.

We stood in that aisle for I don’t know how long, sharing our stories, commiserating, advising, laughing, and occasionally holding back tears. For two women who barely knew each other, we felt a new but very real bond and a genuine affection, not unlike what many of us care-giving bloggers feel for each other.

But this was in person. And not at a meeting of a support group, which is in some ways a time out from day-to-day life in order to focus narrowly on my caregiver identity. I certainly appreciate the lovely people I have met there, but connecting to Susan was different, a reminder of how widespread Alzheimer’s is of course, but also something larger I am not sure I can articulate. About openness, and not only openness concerning Alzheimer’s. About hoe people are always deeper and more interesting than we assume. In making facile assumptions (in my case writing off Susan as belonging to a world where I didn’t fit), opportunities for real friendship may be missed.

Susan and I parted that day promising to get together again for lunch one day. I hope we do…