Newbie Intro

Sitemsek

Hi all. I knew that I would have to take care of my wife someday but didn't think it would be because of dementia. My wife is 20 years older than I am and as we are about to celebrate 32 years of marriage I get a certain amount of joy in being able to care for her in her hour of need.

A little of our backstory. We started noticing problems with her ability to find words or mixing up letters in words over a year ago. We continue to laugh at some of the new words she creates. Thank God for her great sense of humor. We went to a neurologist who did an MRI and other tests and said they didn't see anything out of the ordinary for a woman her age. Six months later they noticed a difference since her last appointment so sent her for a neuro-psych evaluation and diagnosed her with dementia of the alzheimer's type last fall. It was tough to hear but not surprised as we saw her speech issues slowly get worse. After a bit of a pity party we got busy.

We have told our families, friends and a couple work peers including my manager so he knows why I might need time off occasionally. Luckily, I work from home full time. We're also very fortunate to have a wonderful church family with the best priest ever to support us during this time. We met with our financial planner and he referred us to a certified elder law attorney. We signed the new docs yesterday including wills, trust, DPOA, advanced care directive, etc. I've been reading a lot here. A couple years ago we had purchased a burial plot so that's all set. She is still driving but we've limited her to staying within our town. She also understands that may change at any time if I think she shouldn't drive any more. I've taken over paying all the bills, something she used to do. I also have all account logins for her email. credit cards, etc. I now do 90% of the laundry and cleaning and even put a meal schedule together just so it would be one less thing for her to try to plan. I also have set up her medications in separate boxes and labeled them with the time of day she should take them and set up alarms on her phone to remind her to take them. It's really a reminder for me to remind her though she's still good at taking them. In other words, I think I've done everything I can at this point.

Anyway, no questions at this point but wanted to introduce us as I've been lurking here for so long. I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions as things progress.

Peace.

M1

Welcome to the forum. Im 15 years younger than my partner as well. You are fortunate to have her "buy-in" on the diagnosis, it's unusual but good. Sounds like you've caught it early te. And yss, a sense of humor helps a lot. Good luck.

Pat6177

Welcome Sitemsek! Congrats on getting so many of the legal and financial things in order. Maybe you might want to also freeze your wife’s accounts at the credit rating companies. In addition to doing that, I set up accounts for both of us at Credit Karma so that I would see if anything odd showed up on the credit reports. It’s free to do this and you learn to navigate directly to the info you want to check, bypassing all the ads.

If you have been reading on this site, then you have probably read about anosognosia. This is where someone with a brain injury or dementia truly cannot understand their disease. Though your wife understands today what her diagnosis is, as the disease progresses, she may develop anosognosia and no longer realize she has a problem and no longer go along with some of your current agreements. 

RCT

Welcome…my husband is 15 years older than me so can relate to that…and he still has a sense of humor…you sound like you jumped right in and did the right things early on..as did I ..my only caution is the driving…since she has a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s there might be a problem if she does have an accident…I was advised by my local support group to have him stop driving and thankfully he did without resistance… I have been the chauffeur since Dec 2019 and while it is a challenge to be in charge of driving and everything else I know it is the right decision. 

This group is here to answer questions and to offer all the support you will need!

Sitemsek

M1, Thanks.

Pat6177, Good tip on the credit. We both have accounts with Experian so that helps. I may also mention closing some of the credit cards to her since she really only uses one with any regularity. Yes, I've read about anosognosia. I know things won't stay as they are today but we'll deal with that when it happens. Thanks for the tips.

RCT, I understand your point about the driving. It's something I think about every day. I think her stopping to drive is coming sooner than we both want. Thanks.

Peace.

notsomuch

My wife was still driving, but becoming confused about how to get home. she was also having small accidents with no other car involved. I got a GPS tracker and installed it on her car. I was able to tell where she was located and even give her turn by turn instructions to get home.

I suggest that you search for GPS trackers. I used a Zubie, but this was a few years ago. there are other options now.  Of course she had a cell phone that I could talk to her and give her the instructions.

White Crane

Sitemsek, welcome to the forum.  You sound like a very organized person and have gotten off to a good start.  Her driving concerns me.  Things can change rather quickly and her response time and judgment may not be as good as they were. 

Please keep posting and ask any and all questions you need to ask.  Everyone on this forum is here to help each other.