Dealing with Dementia

hate Dementia. I hate what it has done to one of the people I love most in the world. I hate what it has done to my family and I hate what it has done to the way I view the world and God. I have led a fairly blessed life. No one beat or rape me when I was a child. I always had a roof over my head and food on the table. I was loved and had enough innate talent that I was able to get an education and make a living. While I knew the world was not really fair I thought if I followed most of the rules I along with the ones I loved would be protected. I was wrong.

Dementia creeped into my life. When it first appeared I thought it might be depression or maybe a little too many prescription pills or a few extra drinks on a Friday night but unfortunately for me and all others in my family I was wrong. What we were dealing with was full blown Dementia and the downward spiral began and has continued and continued and continued. People can live for decades with dementia in fact caregivers might die before the patient due to the stress and the heartbreak and the exhaustion of caring for a loved one with Dementia.

Before dementia entered my life I always thought that hope was a gift. Something that could be held onto in times of darkness and despair but hope and dementia do not go together. Dementia may progress slowly or come on all at once either way it is a nightmare. When it comes on slowly you can have hours or days with a person where they are "their old selves" you begin to think that maybe the rages and the incontinence and the confusion were all a mistake. That the doctors were wrong and that your loved one is going to be OK and then BAM the confusion the rage and all the other symptoms come back and you start the grieving process all over again. Even when the dementia comes on suddenly for most sufferers there are moments of lucidity moments that give you hope. Doctors and nurses and other caregivers tell you to grab onto and hold these moments close, cherish these moments. This is much easier said then done as because as soon as you hold onto them they are taken away and you have to bury the person again. In fact with dementia you bury the patient over and over and over again and yet you never get closure because the person is still here the body and the voice and the energy is still here but the spirit is gone the soul is stuck between here and there and it is awful.

The toll it takes on a family is one that if people are not careful may never be healed. There is the financial cost of caring for your loved one which in all honesty is nothing compared to the emotional toll. Siblings can become resentful each one believing that they are the only one carrying the burden. Spouses can become exhausted. Throw in divorce with second and third spouses, step children, half siblings, old hurts and it is a recipe for disaster.

Maybe when it is all over these hurts can be forgotten and forgiven. Maybe old memories can come back to replace the years that are stolen I do not know. My experience with dementia is on-going it has not ended I am ready for it to end even though I know that the end will mean death. Dementia is a living death and at this point in time I would rather have a real death then what feels like a never ending living death.