Hi. My name is Anne Dovel. I cared for my husband as he wasted away with Early Onset Alzheimer’s. These are some notes and reflections I’ve had since his release from this earth last summer.

I wonder if I’ll laugh again? That was one question I asked myself the first year of full-time caregiving for my husband (who had early onset Alzheimer’s.)

The first six months after the doctor told me to take Dave’s keys away, make sure firearms and knives were locked up securely, don’t let him use power tools, keep my keys and money out of reach, look into getting a security system to monitor all the doors and various other directives to keep Dave and my family safe, I didn’t laugh much. Those first six months, I canceled all travel plans, and I only left the house alone 4 times, for appointments. It was during this stage that only a few family members knew that Dave had young Alzheimer’s. It was a desperately lonely confusing time. I felt like there was nothing to laugh about.

I was told by more than one medical person that I needed to cry, I needed to laugh. Interesting how each of those helps your nervous system, and I did neither. No wonder my nervous system was all jacked up by year 2.

I’ve always been more of a laugher than a cryer. In fact, Dave often “knew” me by my laugh, when he didn’t know who I was in person.

Much further down the dementia road, after I had given myself permission to laugh again, I was on the phone, and started laughing with a friend, over something really silly…uncontrollable laughter, the kind that brings you to tears.

Dave heard me laughing and walked into the dining room and said, “Someone’s going to need to sedate her.” Talk about uncontrollable laughter after that.

It is interesting to me, that I can sit in front of the fire, like I am right now, and relive the trauma of the last few years in my head, and put my brain into a despair mode….I can also do the same with joyful experiences.

And that is one way that I not only learned how to cope, but to heal. When I’m feeling that searing pain in my back, (which I still do) from stressful thinking, I can flip the switch if I want to, and think myself into a calm state.

You can draw up pain, and create the same response in your body as if you are experiencing that same situation again. You can also draw up joy. Sometimes all I need is to hear Dave saying to himself….”someone is going to need to sedate her.”