Helpless. That’s the best way to describe watching an LO (Loved One) slowly disintegrate from AD. It’s not like cancer or some other death sentence because it vacillates, at least in the early to mid stages. One minute she is rambling in incomplete sentences because the words she wants to use will not come. And then, out of the blue, she can retell an old, often repeated, story verbatim with nothing left out. It makes me think that our brains can operate like a damaged tape recorder. Her playback button still works, most of the time, but the RECORD button is broken so when the topic is something current, what comes out skips and drops leaving gaps. The listener has to figure out what is missing.
What makes AD worse than a diagnosis of cancer is that she refuses to accept that she is struggling with mental decline so there is no good way to help her make peace with what is happening to her. She has easily accepted her bladder cancer. We don’t even talk about it anymore, especially since she doesn’t have pain. But when she asks the same question over and over, or she tries to explain that she cannot get the TV remote control to work so she can watch a program scheduled for 5 p.m. when it is still only 3:30, I am left with no words to help her understand.
Apparently AD is a word thief and can steal words from the afflicted as well as the caregiver.
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