The things you thought were going to be hard, but were actually pretty easy

Ed1937

Did you have any of those? I had two.

1. When she became urinary incontinent, I thought it would be a fight to get her to wear Depends type supplies. I went out and bought some pretty pull ups, then asked her if she'd try them. She agreed. I immediately got rid of her panties, and she never asked about them, and never saw them again.
2. She was a registered nurse, so I thought it would be a battle when I had to take over her medications. I did it slowly, suggesting we take our meds together. Then I told her I would just get hers for her since I was getting mine. This worked for quite some time. Absolutely no problem until the time came where she didn't want to take meds.

Howaboutnow

#1 Thankful it was easier than i predicted: I thought DH accepting losing his drivers license would be awful. Don’t get me wrong, it was one of the awful realities of the disease progression HOWEVER, it came with relief for me that i wouldn’t fear an accident. And his inquiring about it waned quickly. That’s not to say he hasn’t tried to drive on a rare occasion, but it is an impossibility as he has no access to a key and he would not be able to do multiple steps required to start his truck.

loveskitties

My Dad was an "easy" PWD.

He stopped using the computer and cell phone on his own.

He stopped driving on his own.

He made it possible for my mother to keep him home until the last hospitalization and 30 days in MC.

Don't know why it was a surprise to us, as he was the most wonderful man, husband, father and grandfather anyone could want.

Jeanne C.

Surprisingly, the process with the CELA. Our attorney was great and patiently answered his many questions. Also didn't hurt that they had two sweet dogs at the office for DH to love on. I remember being stunned at how well it went.

harshedbuzz

End stage and death.

Dad was diagnosed fairly late in the disease given my mom's denial, so the early stages where fraught with what was then unexplained behaviors as dad, who clearly recognized his memory issues, struggled to avoid being discovered. His MO was to offend people enough that they'd not visit. I was the only family or friend who did but mostly to keep an eye on mom.

The middle stages were no picnic with getting a diagnosis in place, trying to enforce sobriety related to his ARD and taking control to keep him safe which resulted in even more aggression along with accusations. Selling his homes, keeping him from driving, taking over his investments were emotionally difficult for me. I really am not comfortable all up in their business. The loss of driving was devastating and something that came up constantly-- the very last exchange we had was me promising to drop off his Ford so he'd have wheels in case he needed to go somewhere.

In the last month of his life, he regressed to a personality more like his ancient aunties described-- the sweet and endearing little boy they knew. I got to a point where I enjoyed our visits. He was still very verbal and telling wildly conflated stories but they were mostly pleasant, and he enjoyed telling them. He developed aspiration pneumonia (exam, x-rays and bloodwork happened in the afternoon) and died quite quietly in his sleep later that night. I'd always heard of pneumonia being the old man's friend-- in his case it was.

HB

M1

Interesting thread Ed. The only thing that has been easy here is invoking my powers of attorney. absolutely no one has given me a hard time about it. Probably good that we had them established years and years ago, and all our business people knew us both well.

It's interesting to read threads about people with LO's who are easy to care for. My partner did not have what I would call an "easy" personality--she was always a loner, fiercely independent, self-taught, a true autodidact. She was exacting to the point of OCD in her work, but fair, and all her subs adored her, and it's why she was so well respected in the industry. One of her favorite phrases: "you have to be able to tell them to go to H* and make them look forward to the trip. " Love that. I used to delight in listening to her call up bank presidents, introducing herself only by first name, and telling them she needed to open a multimillion dollar line of credit in a week--and they would inevitably do it, because that's how good her reputation was.

We had fireworks in our relationship at times--her personality is far more charismatic and demanding than mine--but her psychology background stood us both in good stead, we both learned how to fight well and fairly, and how to apologize. We sought counseling when we needed it, and there was literally never anything that we didn't think we could overcome.

But the dementia journey has been nothing but difficult. She hasn't succumbed easily to accepting help, even from me, much less to needing to live in a group setting. Her beloved farm and animals came to pose a danger to her, an environment in which I couldn't care for her, and I could not convince her to downsize at a time when it might have helped. Then of course, there were some institutional monkey wrenches along the way--the psych hospital and the first MC facility--that made things harder than they should have been, through no fault of ours. I do pray daily now for her early release.

GG06

Great question/post Ed.

In the early phase of his disease, before we knew what was going on, my husband refused to go to the doctor. He would angrily shut down any conversation about seeing a neurologist or anything related to the memory and language issues he was having. As the disease has progressed and he developed anosognosia, it has easier and easier to get him to doctor's visits and testing. I occasionally still need to tell fiblets, but it is not the battle it was in the beginning.

White Crane

I dreaded having to try and stop my DH from driving. He was getting lost frequently but always found his way home...until one day he couldn't. That was the turning point for him. It was time for him to renew his drivers license and he willingly gave it up and applied for a non-drivers license as it is called in our state.

Whyzit

DH wasn’t brushing his teeth. Someone on this site suggested doing it together but our bathroom sink is too small. So now we do it at the kitchen sink after meals and there is no forgetting or hassles. Thank you fellow caregivers for all your suggestions.

Quilting brings calm

So far:

It was easy to assume the finance role that mom used to do…. Except for dad who then made things hell by moving half their money when I had no access to the other half.

It was easy to get mom to quit driving, she did it on her own. I’m going to have to have the doctor report dad to the state. And deal with the fallout.

It was easy to get them moved into assisted living ( although he complained afterwards for a couple years) once I got them back to our home state as they had no where else to live. It was hell to get them back to our home state.

It was easy getting mom to wear depends.

It was less easy getting her to use her walker when I take her places. He has started using his cane when I take him places- which made me wonder if hell froze over.

mommafour

It was surprising, or more like shocking, to me when DH suggested that I take over handling our finances. He’s always been very controlling in that area. One day he realized that he missed an important payment in one area but made a huge payment twice in the same month to another (and of course they wouldn’t refund). So he asked me to handle it all going forward. That was in 2011 after he was diagnosed with MCI but still driving, playing golf, meeting up with friends, and thinking somewhat logically. Unfortunately, those days are long over and everything I’m dealing with at this later stage has been very difficult, stressful, and demanding. I’m currently in the midst of dealing with his extreme anger over receiving a letter from the BMV that he was reported as an unsafe driver, which will hopefully result in terminating his driver’s license. (To clarify, he does not drive and hasn’t for a long time.) Each day he remembers it then the anger boils over again. A family member reported him because he is demanding to buy a car, which is also a source of anger. I can’t handle the stress of this issue.