As I sit at my kitchen table, watching the marsh hawks dive and float over the little bluestem, I wonder about many things.

How long will this last?

Will the Aricept work?

How much more time do we have as the "real" us?

Can I do this?

Will he have another episode where he demands a divorce?

We had a very rough week.  He has taken these "trips" before but not like this.  This trip lasted five days, and on the fifth day he demanded I get my things and get out.  Oh, there have been a few little detours where he alluded to this and then later didnt' remember.  This one was different.

I made arrangements at a shelter as I did not want family to know this was going on just yet as I was not sure even what "this" was!!!

I got two miles from home and daughter called me and of course I would have gone back home anyway.  Then I became labeled the crazy one.

I called the Hospice social worker who told me quite simply: "You can go or you can stay and you have to be the one who makes that decision."  Seems to me that they are supposed to help us cope, and there ought to be middle ground. 

Oh, I know I need someone to talk to about this but I also need one thing that caregivers of Alzheimer's patients are short on is: SLEEP.  Take any normal sane person and deprive them of sleep for, oh, say three months and they will sound crazy and look like hell.

So I am going to the therapist as recommended but still, they cannot help me get sleep, or "get over" the fact that my husband does not remember why he married me.  He does not remember asking me to marry him, or all the things we did together.  I don't even ask anymore.

Things from his childhood and early teens, he remembers well.  When he is talking about farm things, things that are firmly implanted, he sounds like his old self. 

Yet anything past 1980 or so, he is fuzzy on.  The part where I came into his life.  What kind of crappy disease is this?

It finally occurred to him that we were not making this stuff up.  He did, in fact, ask for a divorce.  He cried when he realized, yes, this really happened.  So we asked his doctor for Aricept or ANYTHING that may slow this bastard disease down.

Alzheimers is a nasty, nasty bastard of a disease.

Three of my husband's uncles died of the results.  One was found in his truck weeks after he disappeared.  One died of pneumonia after being kicked out of several nursing homes.  One aunt cusses everyone out, now. Another uncle died in a nursing home.   This is his family history. 

Apparently early onset Alzheimer's can be triggered by viral infections and they are getting closer to finding this link. 

I will not give up until I have no choice.  I know he will be a difficult case to manage as he is fiercely independent, very intelligent and has the ability to suck it up and appear totally together, which is an asset.

Alzheimers, you suck.

By the way, I deleted my posts because the search engines links my blog to my actual real name.  I figure anyone who takes the time to look up my blog is probably someone who can handle what I write here.

Some of my family just can't handle this.  I don't blame them, yet I have to handle it.

Nasty Alzheimer's bastard.