Tag Archives: stress and memory loss

Celebration Amid Stress

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

flowers                                              my bouquet from Ralph (with help from our daughter)

 

For most of this autumn all I could think about/write about was the tractor (back in the shop for yet more repairs due to user-error I suspect), which became the symbol of the stresses of life with a spouse on the Alzheimer’s spectrum. Now I find myself writing yet a happy description of our life for the second time in a row! Perhaps we have reached another plateau or perhaps I have adjusted to whatever plateau we have been on for a while…

The dangerous temptation to think Ralph is somehow getting “better” also pops into my mind, especially because as always happens, visitors over Thanksgiving commented that Ralph seemed better than they expected. He was better that usual because as also often happens, he is more alert and less passive around others—if he’s comfortable with them–than when alone with me. Since he was also the more genial, gentler post-diagnosis Ralph, he was a generally entertaining presence.

Not that rough patches didn’t abound in an eight-day week with a houseful of guests on the farm. But the stress caused by the tensions and physical ailments of other family members and friends had nothing to do with Ralph. If anything, he helped smooth some of the week’s rougher patches.

He also began to enjoy his grandfather role more, both with his older grandkids and with his namesake grandbaby whom he began to hold and cuddle even without being asked. In fact this morning, in our suddenly quiet house, he said he missed BabyRalph—who though exhausting was certainly not a cause of stress.

And Ralph really got into the small-scale festivities surrounding our 40th wedding anniversary. Actually so did our kids, who did a kind of countdown to midnight (and made us stay up way past our bedtimes) on anniversary eve, then opened a bottle of bubbly that we all shared while listening to the John Prine/ Iris Dement duet of “In Spite of Ourselves” that is considered by some to be “our song.” As we all shared that moment of silliness and laughing, a moment of euphoria, part of me couldn’t help observing in a kind of awe that I was having an experience with Ralph that I haven’t for a long, long time—the sense of being on equal footing, of standing together on the same ground, of being a wife more than a caregiver, of being loved not simply needed.

 

 

 

 

 

Ms. Grinch, The Caregiver (i.e. Me)

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This Christmas season I am definitely feeling like Ms. Grinch. Maybe it’s the increased sugar intake, maybe it’s the extra running around and social organizing, maybe it’s the gray weather, or maybe it’s not Christmas at all, just the wearing down of my patience over the last twelve months, but Ralph has been “getting on my last nerve.” And that nerve is shredding fast.

As I have said here so many times, this caregiving business has its ups and downs. Well I have definitely been in a definite crevice lately and having more trouble than usual crawling out. Or admitting I was stuck at all until this morning when I found myself texting my sister that I was feeling overwhelmed, the kind of admission I generally avoid. She responded sympathetically asking what was wrong; I wrote back “Nothing wrong exactly. Just day-to-day stuff. Everything slower and more complicated. Trying to adjust to reality of how Ralph’s limitations impact.”

As soon as I hit send I realized what I had typed was an acknowledgement of certain obvious but previously unstated realities:

1) I trip myself up with unreasonable expectations. Intellectually I know that Ralph is limited, but in the face of reality, I keep expecting him to step up to the plate. While occasionally, he does step up, like getting Zeus to the vet last week, usually he can’t. I know that’s not his fault, yet I still get annoyed.

2) Annoyance and its sister resentment are  only part of what I am feeling. Before that text Ralph and I had spent hours writing an email responding to someone asking Ralph for real estate advice. Actually I could have/would have given the same advice, but she trusts Ralph’s advice more because he’s always been the expert. And his instincts and perspective remain sharp. But he cannot hold onto a thought long enough to give advice. So I constructed the email letter by asking him the same questions over and over, fine tuning as I posed the same question in different ways. We actually worked well together because we both acknowledged without rancor Ralph’s memory issue. That our final product was a clear, concise and useful analysis should have left us both with feeling a great sense of accomplishment, satisfaction and even pleasure. Ralph was pleased, BUT I WAS EXHAUSTED. And recognizing that the effort exhausted him at least as much didn’t lesson mine—he napped much of the afternoon—as I rushed around carrying out the various commitments and responsibilities everyone juggles in a day.

Obviously lots of people have more responsibilities, especially professionally, than I do at the moment. But I am finding that the effort that goes into making up for his limitations so he can live as full a life as possible…well it’s frankly a drag. Literally, because

3) Ralph’s limitations have been dragging me down and wearing me out. I wake up most morning tired. Worse, I let myself fall into Ralph’s low octane rhythm. My energy has dropped with his but unlike him I have stuff to do, the vestiges of a business to run, his life to run, my life to run, along with various other obligations in our family and community.

4) And then there are my personal creative ambitions. I have to ask myself whether I can keep them alive much longer under the circumstances. And my honest answer is, I’m not sure.

As I wrote that sentence I took a huge breath because there, I’d faced the real crux. Can I put in the increasing time needed to be Ralph’s caregiver—his chauffeur and calendar keeper, his rememberer and mental translator—and expect to have the kind of energy I need to focus and create another world in fiction.

I’ve always said yes, of course. But now I’m wondering.

Having admitted my doubts, I hope I am back in the swing of positive energy very soon. I think I will be. We all feel overwhelmed at times, caregivers and caregivees. We all want to escape. We all have to find the way forward that works for us. And the path is not always the one we expected.

Just writing that last sentence, I feel better already.

Relieving Alzheimer’s Stress is Exhausting

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IMG_0255Ralph knows how to relax; but do I?

I recently wrote about Ralph’s good mood and said that his level of relaxation versus anxiety was the key. I wasn’t lying. Because he’s been relaxed, he has been in a great mood during the visits of both our son and our grandson and despite all the entertaining and disruption to his normal life that occurred while they were here.

There was something I didn’t mention, however, because I wasn’t aware of it until now that everyone has gone:  Keeping Ralph’s anxiety at bay has been less than relaxing for me.

The good news—I somehow lost weight in the last two weeks although I stopped exercising and started eating everything I usually avoid. The bad news—I am exhausted.

Keeping Ralph on schedule and unstressed is one thing when just the two of us are going through our set daily routine. Throw in extra people, break the routine: suddenly life gets a lot more complicated.

Not that I didn’t enjoy myself. I did because having people around to talk to and laugh with and make election jokes (kind of like funeral or Alzheimer’s jokes) with was delightful.

And not that my son and 16-year-old grandson weren’t amazing…both of them perceptive, understanding and patient.

But I still found myself smoothing things over. Making sure they were not overwhelmed by Ralph, and Ralph was not overwhelmed by them.

When my grandson told me “Oppa” was in much better shape than he’d expected, I was glad and relieved. But also, secretly, a little tiny bit miffed that I was doing my job so well that no one even noticed. (And I am not fishing for compliments here, because most of you face a ton more than I do, but I’m guessing you caregivers know what I mean.)

Well, there will be another test this coming week. Ralph has been invited to go fishing with his “fishing club,” three guys from Nashville with whom he has fished in Florida for the last fifteen years. I was originally going to drive him down, drop him off  on Monday and  pick him up from the guys on their way home Friday.

But then I realized, who was I kidding. Ralph would be increasingly anxious without me for ballast and he would end up being more responsibility than any three late-middle-aged (to put it kindly) guys could handle. So I am going too. We’ll see how I like being one of the guys.