Caregiving and Featured Blog of the Week: Dementia Blues
This week’s Genetics and Health featured blog is Dementia Blues written by Paula Martinac, an author and editor currently taking care of two parents with dementia. Paula writes in an honest and straightforward way about what it’s like to live day-to-day with her parents constantly on her mind. From shuttling them to hospitals and doctor’s appointments to reflections on how her parents used to be. I was especially touched by her Monday Two post where she intends to list two positive things she knows or remembers about her parents every Monday.
In her introductory post, she wrote:
Sometimes I am very patient with my folks; some days I have to stop myself from being mean. It is often emotionally more than I can tolerate, dealing with people who even on a good day don’t make any sense. Add to that the fact that my parents were never terribly supportive of me anyway - my dad once screamed at me, about being gay, “Why can’t you be normal!” - and maybe you get a picture of my dilemma.
I think that every day we’re alive takes us one step away from being “normal” so it is with compliments that I’m glad Paul isn’t normal at all. Thanks for sharing your story with us, Paula, and giving us a glimpse of what it’s like to be a caregiver.
Tags: blogs, caregiver, caregivers, caregiving, dementia, disease, DNA, Genes, genetics, healthRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Featured Genetics and Health Blogs
.gif)
6 opinions for Caregiving and Featured Blog of the Week: Dementia Blues
Liz Strauss
Apr 9, 2006 at 5:12 am
Sometimes the same feeling arises taking care of one such parent, when the second parent begins feeling sorry for herself . . . This blog sounds like one that is needed. What a great idea to feature blogs like this.
Ann
Apr 21, 2008 at 11:01 pm
First time I have written on the internet. My husband is in a nursing home where I visit him most days for lunch. He tells me wild stories, sometimes the same ones for days, about being a pilot, flying to London, SA, Antartica and Alaska. Also being a Marshall and going to get a car with all the attachments, do other people with dementia live in a world where nothing is actually true
Elaine
Apr 22, 2008 at 7:50 am
Hi Ann
Welcome to the vitual world. I’m sorry to learn of your husband’s situation. What you have written is quite common. From my own personal experience with my grandmother who had late onset Alzheimer’s, I was able to observe her Nursing Home friends over a period over over 10 years. Many had dementia and many would tell me the most amazing stories. Often if you delved into their past, there would be a ring of truth around the tales. However much of the time the stories were familiar tales from novels that they had probably read or watched as films. The brain is an amazing organ, processing every bit of life. Sadly, in dementia, the ‘wiring’ effectively goes awry and the brain processes experiences as if reality. I would say, enjoy the tales and revel in your husband’s enjoyment in telling his ‘life’s’ stories. Elaine
Ann
Apr 22, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Thanks Elaine, I have been online trying for quite a while to find how other dementia patients talk.Sometimes when i come home I am exhausted and can’t move the rest of the day and it is good to hear that other people tell stories like I hear every day. He has a new thing now about sitting on the toilet for a couple hours at a time even though he has a catheter he thinks he is passing urine. Sometimes he dumps it himself in his garbage can. He has wonderful care but he wants to do everything by himself. He doesn’t want anybody to push his wheelchair and he pushes old ladies while he is in his wheelchair and they are in theirs. It is really funny at times and he seems happy to help them.
Ann
Apr 27, 2008 at 9:04 pm
This is not an opinion just thoughts, my husband has dementia now for 3 years, 2 at home and one in a nursing home. I go most days but lately my blood pressure is high so I have not been going. Now I feel such guilt or sadness for not going I hope to get back tomorrow. Actually he is not aware if I went or not but he knows me when i do go. I spend most of my time in front of the TV or computer because I have a painful foot, I am trying to find a balance to decide how to act in all of this.
Ann
Apr 28, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Tomorrow I have to take my tape recorder with me, the stories he tells are just amazing and I forget half before I get home. Today he said he took everybody in the nursing home on the Disney Cruise and he had to go back and get some electric saws because he cut the nursing home down. When I asked where he lives now he said in the nursing home.
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: