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The Surviving Alzheimer's Podcast EP1 - SO You can Survive Alzheimers ?
This being the first episode, I think it's important for you to get to know a little bit of background information and introduce you to the people that this podcast is about. It's my hope that you'll be able to connect with us, thus, be able to relate your experiences to ours in doing this. I hope that you can learn from our experiences.
I'll also introduce you to how we have survived alzheimer's disease. Well, let's get started. Let me tell you a little bit about my wife and I, my wife, Shanna, was born in Los Angeles. I was born in the Bronx New York. We met in spite of impossible odds and we fell in love and we were married a little over a year after we met, we spent the next 10 years living in Southern California, raising four little boys.
We finally added a daughter to the mix and our growing family has spent the last 32 years here in Gilbert, Arizona.
Why did I decide to do this podcast really? It's about you. I wanted to help you in dealing with your loved one's dementia. I've learned a lot of things along the way here. A lot of it was the hard way, and I hope that some of the things that I've picked up along the way may be of use to you.
About a year and a half ago, when I finally decided to move Shanna to a memory care facility after I couldn't take care of her anymore, I had done it for four years, 24 /7. I decided to get some grief counseling. I took grief counseling sessions for about nine months. And one of the things that she taught me was that as we help other people with the things that we have struggled with, we heal.
And I have learned that along the way, I've dealt with caregiver burnout, we survived the COVID pandemic together. The decision to put her in memory care was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. And then once she was there after almost a year, I made another tough decision to move her to a better facility. And that turned out really good. But watching my wife go through all of the stages of the disease and all of the challenges that it brought, both of us was a very interesting experience.
About four years ago, I decided to write a journal. It's now over 250 pages long. It started out as just recording all the different behaviors and changes in my wife's, cognitive ability. You see, I'm a retired engineer and I, I work a lot with data and I wanted to be able to explain to the doctors what was going on. So I would record different occurrences and how often and things like that in time, the journal morphed into, self-reflection and what seemed to work when I would, have to deal with all the various changes when your loved one, progresses with the disease. Oftentimes it was, when will I ever learn not to correct her or not to argue with her, just let it go. And these were lessons I learned. Over time I started seeing little miracles in my life as I. Exercised my faith in God. And as I allowed myself to let him lead, I was taught many things and I recorded these, minor and major miracles in our lives. We'd been married for 42 years. We had our ups and downs all along the way. I've learned about unconditional love.
This disease has brought my wife and I closer than ever together in the last four or five years. Tremendous things have changed all for the better, even while we're struggling with the disease. And this is our story. My hope is in telling our story, it'll be helpful to you, and you'll be able to face your own challenges with a degree of hope and be able to find peace. Like I have found.
So how does one survive alzheimer's? As you probably know, Alzheimer's is a fatal disease, but what do I mean by surviving it? Well, I looked up in the dictionary what the word survival means, and some of the things that I really liked was it means to remain or to continue in existence.
How do I continue to live as I watch the person I love the most in my life slowly fade away? How do I get along or remain healthy, happy and unaffected in spite of some circumstances? That's another definition of survive. That's what I mean by surviving Alzheimer's I will tell you how my wife has dealt with this in episodes to come and how I dealt with it.
Some of the key factors that I'll highlight right now that enabled us to survive was my wife Shanna's attitude. She has never once complained about having Alzheimer's. Her courage is inspirational. These days in her memory care unit, she's known to love and hug everyone around her. She's the happiest she's been in years. That in itself is a major miracle
As for myself being a retired engineer. I like to be prepared. I like to be educated. So some of the things I've done in the last 10 years, especially the last six was I learned a lot about Alzheimer's disease, about the medications, the treatments I learned how to be a caregiver.
I've acquired a shelf full of books that have helped me along the way. And in episodes to come, I'll share some of those things that I've learned out of those books. Maybe even do some book reviews. The other thing was to be financially prepared. Luckily for us, I made a good living working in the high tech industry.
And when I was forced to retire in 2016, we had enough money to live comfortably. Without me having to go to work. And that enabled me to take full time care of my wife. I would not trade those years or anything spending that time 24 7 with her while she still could talk while she still could do a lot of things was a gift from God. I was grateful to be able to do. Because now those things no longer exist. My wife is basically nonverbal, but we can still communicate. And I'll talk more about that in another episode. making sure our legal matters were in order seeing an elder care attorney, getting long term care insurance just in the Nick of time were all great blessings in our lives.
And each of these is its own little story and I'll share those in episodes to come. Becoming emotionally and spiritually prepared. Well, that's something I'm still working on. There are many things that lie ahead still, as my wife goes to the end of her mortal journey and I trying my best to prepare for those.
I wish I could say I I'm ready, but I'm not. Each day is a bit of a struggle. I struggle with sadness at times I miss her so much. I visit her many times a week for a few hours a day, but that's not enough. It's never enough. In later episodes, I'll go over some of the details, telling you about some of our successes and many of my failures, learning how to be a caregiver through, on the job training.
I did find some resources along the way that I'll share with you. These things made all the difference and they led to the eventual survival of our relationship that continues on even today. And it has brought me a piece beyond my ability to understand . So I hope this short introduction piqued your interest.
I hope it resonated with you a little bit. It's my desire that in the episodes to come, that I'll give you information and inspiration that will help you to thrive and survive your journey with your loved one down dementia road. So I'd like to invite you to listen to some of the follow up episodes, follow the podcast so you can get notified when new episodes are published.
In our next episode, I'm going to discuss our backstory. I'll talk about the time before Alzheimer's disease surfaced and talk about some of the early signs leading up to the initial diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment.
Well, thanks for listening and be sure to follow the surviving Alzheimer's podcast. The surviving. Alzheimer's. Podcast is brought to you by ascending Minds, LLC. Thank you. And you have a great day.