Early Onset Alzheimer’s - You Can’t See It In This Photo
/
You can’t see early onset Alzheimer’s in this picture….
But it’s there. On this day at church, our 3 boys came and we took a quick photo outside afterwards. This was August 2022, so by this time, my husband was confused a majority of the day. At home, he was paranoid and often weepy, sometimes asking if I had seen “Anne,” me, in other words, or some younger version of me that he could remember. He was breaking and hiding stuff, hoarding things in the drawer by his bed.
Friends, I’m still finding little stashes of tea bag tags, lifesaver wrappers, pistachio shells, granola bar wrappers, bits of his dogs fur, broken Q-tips, and rocks. Every time I clean out another drawer, or move something around, I find his “treasures.”
You can’t see that there’s dementia in this photo. Because it’s not a disease that you can see; at least not right away. You might pick up on behaviors that are odd, or memory issues. But, at the time of this picture, he was in his 3rd year after diagnosis, with several years prior to that, where he had exhibited the first signs of early onset Alzheimer’s. There were people at church who didn’t realize Dave wasn’t really “there.” He was so good at hiding it. He would laugh, like he usually did. He would act like he knew what someone was talking about, or act like he knew someone. And, he just didn’t talk as much, letting others talk around him, and he would just smile and laugh, pat people on the backs.
As a caregiver spouse to someone with early onset Alzheimer’s, one of the many difficult things that people would say to me, was, “he looks pretty normal to me.” Which, when you are physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted from 24/7 care, even if the intent was good, what I felt was, “they think I’m making it up.” But, if I started to explain to someone what was really going on, I felt like I was a “tattle tale.” If you are a caregiver spouse, you know what I’m saying.
Thanks for stopping by, friends. This is a short post, based on my Facebook post today. What would you like me to share next?
Anne
By the way, If you are a friend or family member who wants updates, I updated CaringBridge today. https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/caregiverupdates/journal/view/id/64cfa2e3e5bf45548bdac973