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Belle

Ed1937
Ed1937 Member Posts: 5,091
Sixth Anniversary 2500 Comments 500 Likes 250 Care Reactions
Member

@Belle I've always said there are no small losses in this game. They are all huge, and I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I remember when my wife forgot how to make pancakes in mid Dec. 2019. She never cooked again. She was an excellent cook, who made most everything from scratch. It was really hard to find something positive there.

I want you to know why I said what I said. I took a 5 day course from Natalie Edmonds. She kept stressing how we have to train our brains how to look for the positive because the brain defaults to negative. She said your brain is a bully, and it steers you into negative thinking. Negative thinking is something that will eat us up if we are caregivers. I followed her teachings the best I could, and I am a believer with her thoughts. Here is a link if you want to try the course. There is no charge. https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/187730#Comment_187730?utm_source=community-search&utm_medium=organic-search&utm_term=fantastic

I want you to know that I'm truly sorry that my words caused you pain. That is not the way we operate here. We're here to help each other up when they fall.

Comments

  • M1
    M1 Member Posts: 6,788
    1,500 Care Reactions 1,500 Likes 5000 Comments 1,000 Insightfuls Reactions
    Member

    Belle i will just echo Ed, we all know the pain you were feeling with that MMSE. If you are new to the forum, it takes a while to get used to the group and to learn the pro and con dynamics of posting on a very public domain, none of us always gets it right. But FWIW I consider Ed the mayor of the virtual community, he's been here a long time and is frequently the one to welcome new participants, as he welcomed me two and a half years ago. I know him well enough to believe that he in no way intended to belittle your feelings. Sometimes i think we are all influenced by where we are in the journey. Given where i am now, I would be astounded and delighted if my partner were able to accurately name the month and the calendar year, forget about the day of the week or the precise date. I have a feeling that might be what Ed was trying to convey.I

    But of course it is terrible, terrible to lose your spouse by dribs and drabs. We never did much in the way of formal assessments, as my partner was defensive and found it humiliating and was intolerant of medications. I hope the neurologist is helpful to you in figuring out Where you stand now and the next steps. And I'm sorry for your grief.

  • trottingalong
    trottingalong Member Posts: 457
    Eighth Anniversary 250 Care Reactions 250 Likes 100 Insightfuls Reactions
    Member

    I will chime in here as well. One of my first posts here a couple of years ago was met with comments that really shook me up and I didn’t like. Took me a couple of weeks to get back on and just read and not comment. I have always found Ed1937 to be one of my very favorite people to comment. Kind and insightful.

    Once I got to understand the community, their knowledge was invaluable and has really helped me. No one was rude or mean with my first comment, they were only responding to the way I had written about my life at the time. Like you, it shook me to the core and I didn’t want to hear what I didn’t want to hear.

    This is a good place to gather information and not feel so lost.

Commonly Used Abbreviations


DH = Dear Husband
DW= Dear Wife, Darling Wife
LO = Loved One
ES = Early Stage
EO = Early Onset
FTD = Frontotemporal Dementia
VD = Vascular Dementia
MC = Memory Care
AL = Assisted Living
POA = Power of Attorney
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