Partner with Alzheimers

[Flor55]

My partner has Alzheimer’s Disease. Last winter he was feeling very uncomfortable living alone so I invited him to live with me which he did and he was very grateful. But he began to have what I believe were panic attacks as a result of a new living situation, being separated from his beloved cats (who we visited regularly to feed and socialize even though they were 25 minutes away), giving up. his online shopping addiction, and his lifelong PTSD (the source of his shopping addiction) — which PTSD the VA was totally uninterested in helping him with. (That’s the honest truth.) As a result of all this and the VA’s refusal to provide him with any kind of therapy other than medication he began to have suicidal ideation. We visited the local VA urgent care clinic, he described his suicidality — and they packed him off for a month! to a locked VA mental ward 45 minutes away even though he has BCBS and could have gone to a hospital 7 minutes away. There’s a lot more but I can’t go on indefinitely. Now: I’m trying to sell his condo — huge problems — an find assisted living (pre-memory care). More stress and anxiety than I can deal with, so much that I’m worried about my own health and joined this group hoping to find some much-needed support.

[101315]

My heart goes out to you and your friend. The system is so overworked and underpaid. It is abysmal that veterans and mental health take such back seat in their care. You are making a difference and I applaud you for your caring. I hope things get a little better soon for your own peace of mind but also for the man you are lovingly helping.

[Stippler]

Bless you for all you are doing.

[Stippler]

PurpleBones - thank you for your service. 👍

[Welaby]

My prayers and heart go out to you and your partner, Flor. The journey you both are on is a uniquely rough one. I just finished our family’s journey with my dad a year ago and cannot believe the things that happened.

I can tell you to remember to be kind to yourself as well as take care of yourself. Both my mom and I ended up in the hospital a couple of times from the stress of everything.

There are so many people out there with Alzheimer’s, but just don’t seem to want to talk about it. We tried setting up two meetings at different locations and were unsuccessful due to lack of interest.

There is a book that is amazing that tells how a husband deals with his wife’s issues. I think it is called “Dementia of the Mind not of the Heart”. My mom used this book more than any other.

I wish you the very best on your journey. Just remember your love for each other. And we are here for you.

[Flor55 in reply to Welaby]

Thank you Welaby. Believe it or not my life has been so busy over the past week with a seemingly unending litany of stuff I'd rather not have to deal with regarding medical visits and condominium preparation and sale that I have not had the chance to respond to your generous comments. Hospitalization for stress and related stuff, mainly the fact that I keep losing weight (due to depression? stress?), is something that might be a possibility for me. I would appreciate knowing more about your experiences, for example, did you have someone taking care of your mom when you were in the hospital, or were you both hospitalized at the same time? Flor

[Flor55 in reply to Welaby]

P.S. If you'd like to read more about our awful experiences with the VA, see my reply to Hidden.

[Flor55 in reply to Welaby]

Hello Welaby. I hope you can give me some perspective on another, related, situation. My partner Quint received the bad news the other day from an assisted living place that we visited. He could not enter the assisted living section but would have to enter the memory care section. I thought this would mean he would have to leave his cat with me. I decided that I could not ask him to part with his cat so i told him that he could continue to live here. His cat is very important to his happiness. So I emailed the admissions person at the AL place that I'd decided that he would stay living with me. (Until last winter when his Alzheimer's made him too uncomfortable to live alone I invited him to stay with me, Up to that point we always lived separately. But that's when he was first applying to assisted living -- there's been a lot that's passed down the pike since then). Today I got a call from the admissions person who told me that he could indeed have his cat in the memory care section. I was so happy to learn this. But when I told Quint all this, expecting him to be happy, or at least accepting of it, he was instead terribly unhappy, telling me that he thought he could live here indefinitely. And now I am consumed with conflict. I really want to live alone and I really want Quint to move to AL memory care. I know I'm supposed to be looking out for myself too, but Quint, who, I admit, is really an overgrown child, is just so crushed. He's not manipulating me either. He really is an overgrown child, and, well, if he is manipulating me it's as a child and not as a calculating adult. I love him and cannot bear to see him hurt. I think what I have to do is give him time to come to terms with it and then maybe make an appointment to visit the memory care unit. That will be another terrible thing to deal with when it comes. Any words from one who has been through the mill already like yourself would be welcome, though it sounds like you and your mother cared for your father throughout his disease. Also, I'd like to PM with you, if you would be willing to do that. If so, please let me know how I can do that on healthunlocked. I can't figure that out. Thanks for your support, even if you don't want to PM.

[Stippler]

I ended up not going! Last week they had to replace my bathtub faucet. They tore out a hole in my bedroom wall for that. They called early this morning and said they would be here to patch it today, and asked me to stay home since they didn't have a key. Late this afternoon they called and said they would be here Friday 🤨. The minister is on sabbatical starting tomorrow so I won't go to church till 3 weeks from today. Oh well! But I have to say I am feeling a lot better about it now.

[Flor55]

Thanks for your reply Hidden. I've been so preoccupied with stuff related to medical things, preparing a condo for sale, selling it, etc., that I have not had the time to respond. I envy you your experiences with the VA. Mine, on the mental health side, have been precisely the opposite. They don't want to know us, basically. I have been back to them repeatedly. Their response is always that patients with dementia cannot benefit from psychotherapy. This began last summer (prior to which he did get psychotherapy at which time they just cut him off) when his cognitive abilities were still quite good and was repeated over and over again when I pleaded for help. Recently a VA neurologist confirmed that patients with Alzheimer's can be helped with psychotherapy. My partner has severe PTSD, he was never referred to the PTSD clinic or given anything other than talk therapy which ended last summer. In fact I did not even know there was a PTSD clinic in our VA Health Center until a couple of months ago and my partner has been in the VA system for years. Because of their complete lack of support and his desperate need for it he became more and more anxious and depressed and eventually suicidal. Then they locked him up in a closed mental ward for a month where he was not permitted to have books, music or videos or, needless to say, visitors. He was so traumatized by the experience that upon discharge he was absolutely frozen with fear about being separated from me and has been living at my house ever since. (We used to live separately.) In other words the VA has damaged our lives irreparably and my poor partner is 78, still terribly oppressed by the awful memories that caused his PTSD, and probably beyond help at this point. I could go on ... but I'm sure you get the picture.