Well, actually, 5 1/2 years since I last posted on this blog. A lot has happened since then.
I became a widow. It had been expected for nine years. My husband Bill had younger-onset Alzheimer’s disease, so it was inevitable. You can find that story on WalkingTheAlzheimersAbyss.com (which is also in need of updating and will be live again soon).
My teaching job ended in 2017. It was unplanned and unexpected. Things were very, very difficult. Bill’s disease had manifested itself in a great deal of “agitation and aggression,” which is a nice way of saying domestic violence. IF I write the book many have said I should, I’ll cover that in detail, and I won’t sugarcoat it, like so many of the books and articles I read–most written from a clinician’s point of view–because nobody should be blindsided by that stuff.
In June of 2018 the situation became unbearable, I had an untreated fractured pelvis (recently confirmed via x-ray), no job, no medical insurance, and little hope. He was hospitalized for a meds adjustment, and the social workers told me they would not be releasing him home. It was too dangerous. Friends at church referred me to a law firm specializing in Medicaid applications, and by the end of June he was in a nursing home.
I highly recommend anybody facing such a decision hire a law firm to do it for you. You’ll still be working 40+ hours a week gathering information, signing things over, and all that comes with that, but it beats dying violently in your bed. Totally worth the money.
Once in the nursing home, he became sweet old Bill again. Why? Because I was no longer the evil witch making him shower, eat, dress, brush his teeth, and other things he didn’t want to do. He took it out on the staff there, while I enjoyed six weeks of peace at home, dinners out, friends over to swim, and re-joining my church choir. My visits to him in the nursing home were almost like we were courting.
He told me he loved me nearly every time I visited. He didn’t know my name, or that we had been married 36 years, but he knew I was somebody important to him, and that’s all that really mattered.
His decline started in early August. Actually, it was more like falling off a cliff. I had had him evaluated for hospice three times. Every time they said they felt his Alzheimer’s was bad enough to merit hospice, but Medicare wouldn’t approve it because he had no comorbidities. He was 68 years old and didn’t even take a statin. He was perfectly healthy, but his brain was dying. Medicare had changed the criteria for Alzheimer’s hospice.
He was hospitalized with a light UT infection on a Wednesday, and was on hospice Thursday morning. Friends and Bill’s loyal (volunteer) caregiver kept vigil with me for 72 hours until, during a drought-busting downpour on a warm Saturday evening, Bill was released from the prison of Alzheimer’s.
He was 68.
The wake and rosary service at the funeral home was packed, the funeral was lovely and the church was full. The luncheon afterward was full of laughter and love. Afterward he was cremated, and the internment ceremony a month later, attended by 20 intrepid friends during a torrential downpour, was followed by another luncheon full of laughter, love, and a monarch butterfly release.
Time passes. The grief ambushes don’t come as often anymore. Some days it feels like yesterday, other days it feels like a lifetime ago. I’m over my anger that we didn’t have at least another 20 years together, like we should have. My days are full of volunteering, at church, and with the Elm Fork Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists, which I joined this year. I visit my brother in Florida annually, but basically stay around Denton, largely because I can’t afford to travel, but mostly because it’s home now, my extended, and chosen family is here, and there’s a niche at Roselawn Memorial Park in Denton with my name on it, waiting for my ashes to join Bill’s.
The View From Little D 