first time caregiver in regard to dementia

jennkatx

To start out with my husband and I are married in name only, the marriage died long ago, I do care for him, and we live in the same house, but different floors.

My husband was diagnosed with dementia 2 years ago, but within the past 3 months I've seen some decline. I was in denial until he couldn't check the fluids in the car, he always kept a good eye on the fluids. I also discovered you can't reason with someone with dementia. once my eyes were open, I saw more, and it broke my heart. then his meds got increased and I saw a good difference and breathed a sigh of relief until instead of caring he is now more resentful of things. for example, when we go grocery shopping, I asked him to get toilet paper so I can get some more food. for some reason all our pets run out at once, I buy most of the non-food and what's left over I get food. instead of saying sure what else can I get like he normally does, he was resentful about getting it and was ok with me living on hot dogs and PBJ. My son will help get some pet food. I cried over the change, I'm not sure how to cope with this. we were thinking about selling our house and moving but was advised against because it could make things worse, now he's resentful about staying. he doesn't understand I'm doing it for him. tissue time

Jeanne C.

Hi Jenn- I'm sorry you're going through this. My guess is that you provide a lot of support so sometimes the progression won't be obvious. It definitely sounds like you're in a difficult situation. I'll be very straightforward about this. You need to get a plan in place. Your legal and financial situation needs to be organized, especially if he's going to need help that you aren't about to provide. Do you have power of attorney? Someone needs to hold POA sooner than later. It's important to get that squared away before he's unable to legally sign. It's good that you recognize that reason with him as that's a huge part of being able todeal with this.

I would repost your comments on the general caregiver board or the spouse board. This great doesn't get regularly traffic. I really set it up so we had a place to save information that we refer to regularly. I only saw it because I'm the person who started this group and I'm not on here all the time now that my husband is in hospice.

Take care of yourself. You'll definitely find the people in the caregiver forum to be helpful, knowledgeable, and kind.