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The Daily Chit-Chat [2008]

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I feel for you. I understand how some can think both parties selfish when they haven't experienced the situation, but really the family is just trying to do what's best for the person and place the person in the care of professionals, and the person is just trying to retain their independence. Both sides are understandable.
 
It seems to me as though one of the worse tortures: not inflicting hardship but taking away competence and the ability to handle hardship, like AIDS. I've always felt I could eventually find ways to deal with many issues (like everyone), but things like these would truly stump me. Isn't it so, though, that there are milder versions? I think I remember a case where the patient simply lost the ability to make long-term memories, and thus lived a life of a few seconds, insignificant but oblivious to his own pain nevertheless. I suppose that would be a somewhat easier life to live. Or am I confusing Alzheimer's with amnesia?
 
I've always heard of it starting as mild but then snowballing into the worst. However, as I am no medical professional, I could easily be wrong.

I'm not sure how inherently torturing it is for the actual person, but my mother, a nurse, seems to think while there is no explicit sadness, it's more a loss of happiness.

For the loved ones, I can say it is torture from experience. Even when your loved one's death is imminent from cancer, you can still often hold their hand and assure them, against all rationality, that some miracle will pull them through. The bond is mutual until death. Alzheimer's is different. They slowly slip away from you mentally before death, which is horrible.
 
Like said, with cancer you can hold their hand, talk to them and such. You can even talk about times of old and get their mind off of things. Remember the good times and such.
But with Alzheimer's they lose pretty much everything that makes them... them. Their memories is gone from them. And it's really bad, talking to that person about what happened some time ago and they don't remember.

And as for Alzheimer's, I think the way it goes is, you lose your short term memory first (when my grandfather wasn't as bad he'd say "Lets go out to eat" right when we got back from going to eat, and stuff like that). He could remember things 30, 40 years ago but things that happened an hour ago was gone.
 
Yeah, it is a horrific thing to witness before your very own eyes, in both cases really. My grandfather is in the early stages of Alzheimers. He can remember, surprisingly, anything about his war days. However recent things such as my uncle's surgery are all of a sudden fergotten. He's still his good ol' whippersnapper self though. It is sad to see it affecting him however. He's really the only family I have experiencing this. (It doesn't run in the family) Though, it is still great to see him. Not to mention it's kinda nice sometimes to replay a story to him, but again unfortunate that they can't remember it.
 
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other complicaions come with it like social development and basic activities like working. Without the help of nextest people you can't deal with the disease.
 
I hate to see stuff like that, especially people who are suffering. I got a glimpse of one of my cousins having a seizure. Of course it's not someone who's old, with a disease or anything. XD But it's still scary... 0.0

And my Grandma doesn't have any disease or anything like that, but she's really... Really.. Old. One time I visited her, and she was going to get me something to drink. I wanted Tea, or something like that... Although she figured it out, she said she was bringing out the tea, she left it in the fridge... XD
 
Like I was telling Gerri, it gets worse. I wish the worst it got was just forgetting this and that. But over time it gets worse and worse.
I'm not trying to hurt anyone here (because by the looks of it quite a few of you have loved ones with Alzheimer's). I'm just saying spend as much time as you can with that loved one (I was there where many of you are now... and I've been to the place where many of you haven't come to yet), you won't regret it down the road. When times do get hard, you'll be able to remember the times you spent together (and it might be sad to see them then, and see them now. But you'll still have them memories).


I loved my grandfather (well, both of my grandparents on my dad's side), he was funny, kind, one of the best people you could meet. The way I look at it, he wasn't able to remember the trips we went on, the time we went out and eat (it might not seem like much to some people, but looking back on it going out and eat means a lot to me), the good times we had. But I'm able to. And I spent a lot of time with him, and I don't regret any of it.
Both of my grandparents on my dad's side has passed away (just a year apart), but I'm able to remember the times we had together. It hurts sometimes, and sometimes I still cry myself to sleep because I loved them so much. But dying is apart of life, and I can remember the time we spent together and... well like I said, no regrets.


Wow, what a depressing topic for the DCC.
 
Yeah. ;_;

But that's not the way my Grandfather died. My grandfather fell in Walmart. XD
Apparently, he collapsed on concret. Which made his brain bleed.
 
Yeah, I know. I haven't seen stuff this heavy in the DCC for ages. x_o;

My grandmother on my mother's side passed away a few years ago. She didn't have Alzheimer's but her mind deteriorated all the same. She had brain cancer so in her final month it just got worse and worse. x_x; She doesn't live close so I couldn't go see her, but I still really regret it. I didn't even talk to her over the phone--my mom had said that Grandma didn't even remember my cousins when they would visit her and that had scared me so I didn't want to. I regret that now because I didn't have a chance to say good bye or anything.

I have one grandparent alive right now and I talk to him on the phone whenever we call (or he calls us) and that's about as much as I can do, but I still do it because I want to value the time I have left with him. I just wish we lived closer so I could actually see him more often. He came up back in October but I was away at school so I only saw him for a day when he and mom drove up to visit. ><;
Tater Tot said:
But that's not the way my Grandfather died. My grandfather fell in Walmart. XD
Apparently, he collapsed on concret. Which made his brain bleed.
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Eep, what a way to go. x_o;
 
My grandpa just died a few months ago; just shy of his 91st birthday. It was weird how he died. He basically suffocated to death, but his heart went crazy trying to pump blood even though he was pronouced dead since his brain had gone.
 
I've got three grandparents alive right now, my grandmother on my mom's side is probably one of the healthiest people I've ever met, so I'm guessing old age is what she'll go from. On my dad's side, my grandmother is okay, but my granddad has been really strange for the last three years or so. There was a period of about a year when he was nearly totally blind and couldn't even walk, but he started getting his vision back, he still can't walk though. I've heard he has a few other mental problems setting in. My dad wanted to take me to see them sometime in June or May, but I've only ever met them three times in my life before, and I was too young to remember them, so I'm not sure I'd want to put myself through the grief of having to meet a family member who is as sick as him.

...this is a depressing topic. XD;
 
My grandpas: 1 died before I met him and the other when I was 4. Now I'm afraid my grandmothers die, they are about 78.
 
I've been fortunate enough to have not lost any grandparents. Well, I'm not so sure about my maternal grandfather, but he was a drunkard who was abusive to my grandmother and walked out when my mother was a kid, so I really don't care what happened to him.

However, my three other grandparents and step grandfather are thankfully all alive. ^_^

My condolences to all that have lost grandparents, though.
 
Woah, why such a serious topic? D:

Three of my grandparents are living. One of my grandpa's died a few months ago. He'd had all sorts of health problems up until then (heart bypass, stomach removed, pneumonia) so I'm not sure exactly what killed him, I just remember that the hospital called one day to tell us that he was in there again, and then about 10 minutes later they called to tell us he had died. ._.; I wasn't that affected though, I hardly knew him. But still, it was kind of disturbing.
 
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