Alzheimer’s Caregiver’s Journal

During a cleaning spree recently, I came across some notes, copies of newsletters to family, and journal entries written during those days of caring for Mother throughout her Alzheimer’s journey.  Reading these brought back some of those challenges and joys of that time.

From one of my newsletters to family after she came to live with Jim and me – “Mother does get up more and more throughout the night and wanders around the house or gets confused about where the bathroom is, where her bed is, etc.  So I never get a full night’s sleep.  Sometimes I’m up with her as much as three times a night.  That begins to wear on me after awhile. 

As a friend told me when we moved Mother here, one has no idea how extremely exhausting it an be to care for a parent who needs the type of care Mother does.  [This lady had cared for her father at home for a number of years.]

Mother also can do very little about dressing herself anymore, so needs a great deal of help with simple tasks like that.”

I realized, as I read what I’d written during Mother’s Alzheimer’s years, that even though it seemed difficult and frustrating at the time, I made it through the journey.  Somehow we do.