You could say I reengaged myself -- it was time to be proactive instead of reactive.
Alzheimer's Reading Room
If you don't understand the disease and its components, you will have a hard time accepting the new behaviors you are experiencing; and an equally difficult time getting control of your emotions.
Understanding Alzheimer's is a key first step in the education of an Alzheimer's caregiver.
Once I had done enough research, I came to what seemed to me at the time a simple conclusion:
Dotty and I would start living our life the way we always had.
This lifted a big burden off my back. I now had a vision.
This simple conclusion changed my focus. I stopped worry about the vagarities of the disease. Specifically, I stopped worrying incessantly about all the bad things that were surely going to happen; and instead, I started focusing on what we were going to do, and not on what we couldn't do.
You could say I reengaged myself -- it was time to be proactive instead of reactive.
This allowed me to accept most of the things that drive Alzheimer's caregivers crazy as normal. A normal part of our everyday life.
I started expecting things like repeatedly asking question to happen. Instead of a here we go again attitude, an attitude that had encompassed me, I started to think -- how can I change this.
Issue by issue, I attacked the problem. After each success, I became more convinced that change could be introduced. I learned that if I got out in front of a problem, I could fix the problem. Not eradicate the problem -- fix it in a way that made it easier for me to accept.
The first really big problem we had was that my mother was falling down all the time. She would fall down in the house, and then couldn't get up. I found her twice laying in the parking lot unable to get up. She was shaking, scared, and sweaty. She couldn't figure out what was going on. Finally, she fell and broke her little finger.
I didn't know what to do, so I Bunkhoused it. I thought about it. I came up with a plan.
Let me interject here. The simple solution and the advice I received was to get a walker. I rejected that solution. That was not the way we had been living our life. I honestly believed we could solve the problem. We did.
The first part of the solution was to get my mother into a gym. To strengthen up her legs. Walking on the treadmill not only strengthened her legs, it helped improve her balance.
Next, I started getting her to do a simple sit down, stand up exercise. She sat on the end of bench and I assisted her to stand up and sit back down. At the beginning, I noticed she was afraid to sit back down. Even though the bench was right there, she would still turn around and look for it.
When we started that exercise it was pure drudgery for me. It took forever to do it a few times. In addition, after 5 or 6 times my mother was gassed. Plus, she hated doing it.
I had another observation. She refused to look at me when she stood up. She would not look at my face. She would look away. She was angry.
We continued to do the exercise 3 or 4 times each week. After a month or so, my mother was doing it 36 times. 3 sets of 12 repetitions.
She stopped falling. Even though she was falling down every day before we started, you might be startled to hear this -- she has not fallen once in six years. She is not on a walker.
I also noticed at the time that my mother walked more securely while wearing her Keds. This lead me to the Mr. Softie shoe by Aerosoles. This also made a big difference.
I paid attention to everything that was happening while we were going through this process.
My first observation. My mother would go kicking and screaming into the gym. She would tell me all the way there that she was not going to get out of the car.
This is when I started to learn that No does not necessarily mean No. Learning that was helpful. It did take a couple of more years before I finally figured out how to take No out of the equation.
My second observation. My mother would usually be meaner than a junkyard dog on the way to the gym. Curse, say mean things to me.
On the way out she was smiling. She was kinder and gentler. This also made me kinder and gentler.
My mother was more engaging after the gym. Talked more.
I was learning all kinds of things by simple observation. I was learning that you could change things and for the better. I learned that I could work with my mother and get her to do what I wanted if I was patient.
Dotty was learning also. She learned to trust me. She learned that I cared. And while it took a few more years, Dotty finally learned that I was in for the long haul. That we were in this situation together.
It didn't happen right then and right there -- but eventually Dotty stopped being mean to me. Mean to herself if you ask me.
We started to life our life. It actually started to get back to a semblance of what it was.
At that point in time, I was just getting started. Over the years I Bunkhoused out new and better ideas on how to improve our life.
Mostly everything I tried brought along with it a positive outcome and benefit. And, every time I tried something new it lead to new and important observations about Dotty and Alzheimer's that gave me new and better ideas.
I now know that I meant it when I wrote down those words,
and those words are the words that make us, Dotty and me, different.
More on our metamorphosis next time.
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Bob DeMarco is the Founder of the Alzheimer's Reading Room and an Alzheimer's caregiver. The ARR knowledge base contains more than 3,811 articles with more than 306,100 links on the Internet. Bob lives in Delray Beach, FL.
Original content Bob DeMarco, the Alzheimer's Reading Room