My husband was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease at age 59 and I’m sharing what it means to be a full-time caregiver for someone with this cruel disease.

I mentioned in my last post/ramble, that I didn’t take caregiver respite the first year. I thought I was doing “fine” even though I was gaining weight, had shoulder issues, a knot in my neck and my gut was not behaving well. But, I was “fine?”

I want you to know that I knew it was important to get some rest. But, I am also one who doesn’t ask for help often. I’d rather be the one to drop what I’m doing to help you. That’s been what Dave and I have done for years. But, after I came to terms with the daily grieving, after 13 months, I decided I had to do something. And, I couldn’t expect my adult sons to pick up on that for me. They were all willing to help, but I had to be the one to say, “This is what I need, are you available?”

1. Be willing to ask for help. I found people wanted to help, but just didn’t know what we needed. So, that’s the first thing. Ask.

2. I hired someone to clean my house every 6 weeks or so. If I lived in town, I would definitely make it more often, but we are out in the sticks. I found an excellent person, reliable and gets my house cleaner than I ever would, so it’s a huge blessing.

3. I ordered meals to prepare from Home Chef occasionally. It gave me a break from thinking about what to make, and it was fun to have fresh flavors.

4. I got out of the house. I love my alone time, to craft and garden, but I energize around other people. I went to the knit shop, a local farm shop, places where I could engage with other people. There were times I really wanted to stay home and play in my sewing room, but it’s like when the boys were little, I never really got that refresh time that I needed.

5. I started choosing more brain active activities for myself. Lumosity is one thing I did daily. I started reading books again, some personal development and some fiction.

6. I rented a cabin and invited my sisters and nieces for a relaxing weekend.

7. Dave was able to go visit his sister a couple of times for a week each, and that was a huge blessing. The first time, I sat in the quiet house, a lot. The 2nd time, I worked hard all week, tackling jobs and decluttering stuff that was hard to do with him home.

What I discovered was that a trip to the store was relaxing, but an extended period of time away, 4 hours or more, was refreshing. It’s like it took my brain that long just to get out of caregiver mode and refresh. So now, when I have one of the sons stay with Dave while I run errands, I plan to be gone 4 hours minimum, if possible.

Those are just a few thoughts. After I started listening to those who were telling me I had to get time to myself, I started feeling like I could think again. It’s logical and I understood that if I let my health go down the drain, I couldn’t take care of Dave. But, it took me a long time to figure out how to do that again.

Anne