I thought I’d tell you all a little bit more about myself since I’ve gotten to know you all much more over the summer. When I came on board with the ‘handle’ Caregiver, I wasn’t foolin’ around…
Further back into the past beyond now caring for my 90-year-old father for five full years, I had been set aside from my ‘normal’ life to care for a couple of other wonderful life forms as well… my husband Bob, and my mother.
Bob, a happy, healthy, most-wonderful-man in the world type (Christian/secular) was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s early 1996 and I cared for him until his ultimate demise with a sudden case of heart failure that snuffed him out peacefully in his sleep at the end of ’99. Within these four tragic years he could no longer talk nor feed himself, certainly incontinent, and could hardly walk. At one point while he was able, he asked me to “pull the plug,” but I had to tell this otherwise healthy man whose mind/brain/motor function was melting in front of my eyes that “honey there is no plug.”
While all this was going on, he was swindled of a very large sum of money by a couple of his brothers who grew wings, sprouted feathers, and started swirling like vultures as soon as Bob’s mental capacity started dwindling. They essentially kidnapped him with undue influence for three months, added to his confusion, told him nasty lies about me, even tried to get some of his property including this house, then after that returned him to me much worse in mentation. They had gotten what they wanted and could no longer handle him, spent the money, and from this point we did the best we could. Yes I sought some legal action, but to keep this as short as possible, there simply were no laws on the state of Georgia’s books to protect the demented in their financial transactions at the time. If this had occurred in South Carolina where they DID have laws protecting the demented, it would have been another story. Needless to say, gone was A CHUNK of Bob’s money that would’ve helped in his care. No worries [with God]… it all worked out and I was able to manage very frugally, and thank God they didn’t get the house.
Actually, I don’t know how I got through all of this. I was a VERY sick puppy with a clinical depression that was barely relieved with psychiatry and antidepressants, but without which I would’ve been virtually physically paralyzed or facilitized myself, and all my senses were very limited. I could hardly see, hear, think. I was very limited in all of my functioning…. which, ha, is very unusual for me. I relate to others who have here on this forum described a blackness... for me, I was falling down a purplish-blackish never-ending, twisting hole. For me, it was an understandable reactive depression, reacting to my world coming out from underneath my feet.
When Bob died I came to full closure. No more husband to care for, no more depression, not much money at all. [I had stopped working to care for him in 97]… even the modest life insurance money went in a heart beat to pay off all expenses incurred during the four-year tragedy… so I put a good foot forward, still not really IN the Lord, but having communed here and there, off and on. I even went to His throne in my mind and shook my fist at Him a few times. (Little ol' “ant” me!) I was sittin’ on
zippo folks, and I don't know why He didn't snuff my little light out.
I didn’t desire to go back to hospital work as respiratory therapist, so I typed the daily transcriptions of a close-by cardiology group and worked from my home doing so for two years, 2000-01, with small income. It was the thing to do as I was recovering from
it all. Then they decided to go with outsourcing to India in the spring of 2002 and I was out of a job. This was
right about the time that my father, a heck of a healthy guy, seventeen years older than my husband,
who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2001, was becoming unmanageable in a bad way at the retirement apartment my parents were residing. [trying to keep this short.]
Does anybody else see our Lord’s hand in this? Losing the two men I loved MOST in this world due to Alzheimer's?? I was used to living on next-to-nothing, then out of a job, and my both my father and mother (both Catholic/secular) were on the verge of being facilitized. Mom had been ill her whole life, was at the point of being on three different narcotics for intense pain and very frail. It was given to me to step up to the plate. I was already essentially and literally
out of the world. In June of 2002, I took both Mom and Dad into my home which gave me a little employment so to speak and gave them the best of care I could give, and it soon became like a little nursing home in my house! They both could walk and talk when I inherited them, but it all went downhill very fast for them both.
Mom died a few short months after, a blessing to end her pain. Dad is still with me, now being bed-bound over three years, and a year ago he got a stomach feeding tube and needs oral suctioning as necessary, otherwise he would choke on his own secretions because he cannot swallow. He is essentially healthy still, happy and pleasant all of the time and can communicate a little and understands a little. I do cheers and songs and dance jigs and call him funny names to make him smile. My favorite is: "Victory, victory, VICTORY OVER ALL!!"
Can you imagine me, (only 53), a widow with no children who has had her husband as her son, her mother as her daughter, and her father as her baby boy? How I praise God! (When I used to curse Him.)
And how I cherish you, my forum friends!
Thank you for listening.
Janice