New to this group

sonrise

Hello, I'm new to this group and Just looking for support I guess. My husband has been recently diagnosed with what the doctors are calling "Alzheimer's-Like" dementia. He's due to have NeuroPsych testing in late May. So maybe we'll have more answers after that about his condition. He's been having memory difficulties for 2-3-4 years, and we finally got the doctors to do a brain MRI, which shows shrinkage in 3 areas of his brain that are significantly more pronounced than should be for his age (he's 75). He also has Parkinson's Disease, which was diagnosed about 4 years ago, although he's had symptoms of that for probably 7 years, we just didn't know what it was. He is a Vietnam Vet with Agent Orange poisoning… hence the Parkinson's. But thank the Lord that the Parkinson's seems to be developing rather slowly. But all of this is such a struggle for us both. With being told about his Alz-Like dementia a couple months ago, we've gone into a real tailspin. We both feel like we've been blindsided. Were trying to wrap our minds around what this all means. I guess the good part is that we already live in an Independent living community that is attached to a continuum of care facility which has good assisted living, nursing, and memory care facilities. So as needed we can move into the kind of care that my husband needs. We had planned this because I'm 10 years younger than my husband, and he wanted someplace that is great at taking care of elderly (ie: me) after he is gone. We didn't know that we'd need this kind of facility so that he can get the care that he needs as a memory care patient. And we didn't know this was going to be such a struggle as it's become, and will become more of a struggle as time progresses. I've thought that aging has it's own struggles, but add in Alz-Like dementia and Parkinson's and whew… we're just blown away. I guess I just needed to vent here and tell my story to someone. Thanks all for listening.

Carl46

Welcome, Sonrise. Sounds like your husband is a smart man. I'm glad you have that support available, it will make it much less hard for you to care for him and yourself. Hang in there!

Biggles

Quite often, it now seems to me, life throws a curved ball at us at a time when we feel we should be enjoying the freedom of our twilight years. Dementia is the curved ball my wonderful DH caught. You sound very well set up physically to cope, mentally hang in there come and vent and tell your every day story here, this is the best place for advice and how to manage, every one is kind and considerate and understands. Take care.