Ignorance.....

You hear the stories, but you don't really hear them or understand them until you live through them.   This is Part One of my Blog.

Eight years ago my Father in law was diagnosed with Alzheimers, this was shortly after losing my Mother to Cancer.  Now everyone knows what Cancer is and everyone is sympathic and understanding of the disease.  People don't shy away from you when you are diagnosed with cancer, but if you are diagnosed with Alzheimers it is a different story.  I am not down playing one chronic illness over another, all chronic illnesses are devastating and usually life threatening.  What I am trying to get out in this blog is the ignorance to the illness, Alzheimers. I will be honest, when my Father in law was diagnosed I too did not really understand it or know how to deal with it.  I knew my grandfather had it but I didn't really have to deal with it on a day to day basis. 

This time I did, that is when I went into research mode.  Reading and attending meetings with the Alzheimers society, trying to understand and learn this illness.  I found it exhausting at times, trying to educate not only myself but the rest of the family about the illness.  My children where age 12, 10 and 7 at the time.  My seven year old didn't really understand why her Papa was behaving the way he did and thankfully her teacher was understanding to her needs and allowed me to have the Alzheimer society come into her classroom and explain the illness using very simple words, pictures and tools that children could relate to.  This helped my daughter and also let her know that she wasn't the only child who had a Papa with this weird thing called Alzheimers.It's funny how extended family would say after they had a visit with my Father in law, "He seems fine, are you sure they have the right diagnosis?"  Yes, they have the correct diagnosis, you have only seen him for a brief time, the early stages of the illness are not always noticeable.  He is human and he knows something is wrong so he learns to adapt to the situation around him.  As the illness progresses it then becomes more noticable and that is when the extended family and friends tend to shy away.  Why?  Ignorance, Fear, not knowing how to react to the situation.  It's not contagious! He is still a person who needs people, interaction, and love around him.  He needs us more now than he ever did.

My Mother in law, (God rest her soul), had a hard time dealing with his illness.  Living with him during the first few years of the diagnosis was difficult.  Especially since she too required care for her own health issues.  When she looked at her husband she saw the man she married and had a very difficult time understanding what was happening to him on the inside of his brain.  She would get upset, and angry, not knowing how to deal with the man she loved.  It was like a death in a sense, the life she knew with the man she loved was changing.

 My husband was their only child and so the burden of care rested on his shoulders and also on mine.  The emotional stress and out of pocket costs were hitting home.  My in laws luckily had saved all their lives, however, having to use their hard earned savings for care was not what they had dreamed of.  To be continued....