First signs and the clarity of hindsight.

My wife Val never had a good sense of direction. I remember her calling me after dropping off her daughter during her first year of college at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. Val called to say she was lost. When I asked her where she was, she wasn't sure, but it seemed that she was coming back to New York City via Boston from Pittsburgh. I told to get off at the next rest stop and ask someone for directions. I kept in contact with her the whole time until she was on the New Jersey turnpike, heading in the right direction to arrive in New York City. I told her to call me if she needed some help, and to make sure she called me when she got home. This was in 1994.

So her getting lost, even back then, was probably a sign of things to come.

She went on disability back in 2002. The diagnosis was Post-Polio Syndrome. Memory problems were becoming more apparent and forgetting noun.  And there was also a marked lack of initiative and her ability to reason seemed to becoming impaired. When forgetting the word, I would say Val, “You left out the antecedent, what the hec?”

Now I wish I knew then, what I know now, but what seemed more prominent in Val was her inability to reason out an issue. Now, as a man, I thought, well don't go there, cause maybe it's me that is having a problem understanding her point of view. I didn't know then, but I know now, that the ability to reason is a dementia symptom. This was the first sign, before the more frequent lapses in memory.

Val was very strong willed and had a fierce independence. When we would get into these “arguments” her response was not only to disagree with me, but to laugh derisively at what I was saying. It was very frustrating and I kept thinking, it must be me. The simplest example was her never wanted to clean up the house before we had company. She was hoarding and the house was really a mess. I would offer to help clean up. “No, don't do that. It's fine. Why are you always complaining about the house. You never do anything.” Well she was right, I wasn't doing anything as far as she could see, because every time I brought up the subject she would get VERY upset with me and tell me I'm crazy, the house is fine. Everybody lives like this.

I had the temerity to say “Well I don't think so. Maybe homeless people live in a dumpster, but I don't think our friends and family do.” That, as you can imagine, did not go over well. I would beg her to hire someone. No, I don't need the help. Now, she was doing what she could, but it was very tidy. I would wait until she went to bed, do the cleaning up. But I went to work the next morning, and by the time I got home, it looked like a tornado had hit the living areas. No matter how much I tried, I could not get her to understand this was a problem. In my opinion, she was slowly, but surely losing the ability to reason it out. Nothing I said made sense to her and she would just get enraged. I told her at one point that she needed to see a shrink. I wasn't kind about it, “I said a cluttered house is the sign of a cluttered mind, you need to see a shrink!” How well do you think that went over? Yeah, you're right.

If only I knew then what I know now. I would have been more understanding of her. Maybe... At least I would have known that it wasn't me. We did seek counsel, but it was Marriage counseling. Which of course the outcome is

“It's always the man's fault”. <--- That's a jest... calm down girls!!! :>)

Knowing that someone who has dementia has a diminished ability to reason, should not only cause us pause, but our reaction should be measured based on what we now know. We shouldn't forget that. If only we knew then what we know now....

So it is NOT always memory problems that show up as the obvious first sign, it is behavioral problems that more than memory lapses, that were more prominent as evidence of something wrong. But what? If only I knew then...