FTD -Living with Dad

Happy Father’s Day to all those men out there who are dads, granddads, stepfathers, foster dads, and those who step up when dads are absent, including the many mothers who do double duty.

Today, we honor those men who are or have been in our lives to guide, teach, support and love us. For those of us whose father is no longer with us, it is a day filled with memories, hopefully good ones, and love. My fatherly experience was very good. My dad was a hard-working, dignified, decent man who loved his family. He died in 2000 at the age of 68 from the lung cancer that had been growing, despite his smoking cessation fifteen years before. My father-in-law also met the same fate at the age of 44. My husband was 19 when he died and had been looking forward to spending his adult years sharing good times with his dad. My brother-in-law was 11. His dad’s death at such a young age had a significant effect on his life. So, our Dad longevity track record is not very good. My husband loved his boys. Although they were grown men when FTD made its appearance, it still had a devastating effect on them, as it does on all of us.

My Dad aged 17

“Dad” memories for me are filled with Christmases – all of us in his and Mum’s bed on Christmas morning, him trying on a new gifted hat in his pajamas. With summer vacations, candy and comics on a Friday night (payday). Walking half a mile down the road to meet him from work, just so I could get a ride home on the back of his motorcycle. The “What time d’you call this?” nights. The “yes, I suppose I’ll come and get you” midnight response to my pleading phone calls when I missed the last bus. (I was banking on the fact that by the time he got to me his fury would have subsided, which it always did). The memories of my dad include family Sunday dinners and early morning breakfasts together, just the two of us, then he would take me to meet my ride for work. Happy times. I was shielded from a lot of the ugliness in the world and will always love him and my mother for ensuring that my brother and I had such a happy childhood.

He made some mistakes my dad, which meant that we did not see each other as much as I would have liked when I was older. He married another woman after divorcing my mother to whom he was married for over twenty-five years. I was married and in my own home by that time, but the realization that he wanted something other than “us” was shocking to me. We saw each other of course, but it was difficult for me get over the fact that he had wanted to destroy our family unit and be a part of someone else’s. But he did and I accepted it because it made him happy. It was hard to watch and be part of but I did it.

When your father has FTD, he becomes like mine did – absent. Thankfully my dad did not “disappear” during my formative years, but after I was grown, but it was still hard. Having your dad at home while having FTD is painful. It makes you angry and resentful. Why can’t you be like other dads? Even though my sons were adults, it was so difficult for them to watch, I know. My elder son, Chris, was living in another state at the time, so he lived it vicariously through his brother and I. He would call and talk to his dad, and as time went by the conversations became more and more one-sided. But Alan so loved the calls, even though he could not speak very well. Just the contact made him feel “normal” again I think. My younger son, Adam, lived just around the corner from Alan and I, so he was much more involved in the day-to-day aspects of FTD care. He watched as his dad disappeared slowly into the abyss, feeling helpless. He was very protective of me. We would talk about what was coming next and how we would handle the increasingly bizarre and agitated behaviors. He has told me since that he would dread every text or call from me – anticipating that some dreadful event had taken place. We discussed how cruel it is to watch someone you love go through FTD and that there is no way out until the disease decides it is time.

Our boys had a close relationship with their dad – one of the ties being football. After we moved to the U.S., we would gather at the weekends, sometimes at 4am, to watch our beloved team play as the game was broadcast live from England. Chris is most like him, but Adam and Alan shared the passion for football the most. It broke Adam’s heart when, as the disease progressed, Alan could no longer sit and focus on the game, getting up and leaving the room to attend to laundry or some other imagined matter more important. His responses to the game would be to repeat comments by either Adam or the commentators. He had lost his passion for the game and the very essence of who he was. It was hard for Adam to see and it was hard for me to watch as their relationship faded against their will. FTD unremittingly takes every last drop of passion and volition.

If you are a child, living with a father who has FTD must be strange to say the least. Protecting one’s children is a priority, so those women who are in this position have to do double duty. Trying to ensure that the children have as “normal” an upbringing as possible, and caring for a partner who has no insight into the terribleness that is being wrought upon the ones they love has to be the most difficult thing they will ever do. It’s doubly heartbreaking for them since they know that their children’s father will never see the dance recitals, track meets, swim meets, weddings and grandchildren that are to come. FTD knows no bounds. Fathers become children before their children become fathers. The slow regression must be, for the children, like welcoming a new baby into the family. But how hard is that explain to your friends? How strange to have to explain your dad’s behavior to your friends. How uncomfortable for you to have your friends over and have your dad act all weird. Some kids of course, take it all in their stride, at least on the surface. They accept and accommodate with the resilience that we know kids have. But the resentment, for which they feel guilty of course, is bound to come. Other kids have parents who divorce, or have cancer, or die in an accident. But these kids of FTD have to live with changing behaviors every day, with no end in sight for several years. They may have to move, change schools, give up things due to financial constraints and lose some of their family or friends because they just don’t understand and fade away. Their dad is around, but unable to go to graduation. Present but unable to contribute at the PTA meetings. At home, but needs a babysitter. Alive, but no longer with us.

So, this Father’s Day, I wish all dads a lovely day. But I send the FTD kids a special wish that somehow, their life will be enriched by the experience of being forced to care. That they will one day understand how important they were in their dad’s life. And that they will be able to celebrate future Father’s Days with fond memories from better times.

FTD – Only the Lonely Know The Way I Feel Tonight

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“I have lost the one person with whom I could share everything. I still talk to him like he understands but he just looks at me. Lonely doesn’t begin to describe this feeling. My biggest fear is that I have not cultivated enough close friends to sustain me when he is physically gone. There will be a lot of empty hours to fill” – Christina, caregiver to her husband.

These are the words of someone who is caring for a person with FTD. Sometimes, when you get caught up in the day-to-day life of a caregiver, you lose sight of yourself and reality.

Dealing with constant observation and supervision, food fights, diaper changes and walks keep one busy. Akin to the life of the parent of a toddler, one often yearns for a little peace and quiet. But after all that, after the night comes and calm is present for a short while, the pain of not having your partner to bounce the day off sets in.

Wanting to take advantage of time when you are not needed to guide what can often seem like a military exercise is natural of course. A little time to yourself, quiet time to just sit and do nothing seem like a pipe dream. But when it happens, you don’t really want it. All you want is to have those times back when you sat and talked About nothing, about everything. You just want it back.

“Conversation, I think that is worst. I spend all day talking to someone who never answers me back. Or seems to understand what I’m saying. And then when I do get her to bed and have my quiet time is when it sets in. Oh well the life of FTD” – James, caregiver to his wife, Peggy.

The quiet brings different feelings too. Pain, anger, sadness. Left to your own devices, you begin to dwell on how things might be different if it weren’t for the damn FTD. Conversations about your day, your work, your kids, your friends. The vacation you’re planning, the honey-do list.

Fear and dread overwhelm you. Fear of what you know is to come. Dreading the end result of this bastard disease. But still you endure. Still you go on, because – well, what else can you do? This mission that you have accepted has no defined beginning or end. It just morphs into a total disruption of your life. Eats up your love like an insatiable demon and forces you to think of the unimaginable.

“I’m always torn between being grateful for the peace and quiet so I can relax from the responsibility/demands for a bit, then the lonely crawls in and takes over.” – Lynn, caregiver to her husband, Len.

Guilt can be a powerful emotion during these times. You long for the times when you felt “happy”. Remember those? Happy is hard to define until you don’t feel it any more. Then you know. You know exactly what is is once its gone. And if you do happen to have a smiley moment, the guilt will jump up and slap you in the face. “How dare you feel anything but duty, loyalty and subservience at this time?”  Laughing? Don’t you dare! The FTD guilt police will be after you!

All the negative emotions you feel – guilt, loneliness, emptiness, are far surpassed by what you are achieving every day as someone who fights this evil disease. Yes, you’re fighting. You know you can’t win, but you will give it a good run for it’s money. Being alone when you are with someone is absolutely soul-destroying. A form of torture in my opinion.

“That was my worst feeling. Being lonely even though my husband was right there.” -Michelle, caregiver for her husband.

Even commenting on something you are watching on TV, or see in the street returns little to no intelligible or understandable response. It’s like solitary confinement, except you are allowed to go out. Those little private jokes you shared belong only to you now.  Even menial things around the house can become a trigger for loneliness. The chores that your other half always did suddenly don’t seem to get done anymore. It takes you a while to notice, but one day, the plants in the yard are all dead, the pool isn’t cleaned, or the laundry isn’t done, or you have no dinner when you get home. It comes as quite a shock, that they don’t remember how to do those things anymore.  It’s not important to them. Not as important as where (and when) their next meal/snack is coming from, or where their money is. How did that happen? Their ability to think of anyone but themselves drives your loneliness. As they withdraw into their FTD world, so do you into yours. You have no choice.

‘The other night our dog started barking. I had to wake up Ian to tell him I thought someone was outside. He ever so slowly got dressed, went to the toilet then strolled out and then asked me what I wanted him to do? I sat alone crying because it made me realise how truly ‘on my own’ I am now.”  – Vicki, caregiver for her husband, Ian.

I know that you know all this if you are or have been a caregiver of someone with FTD. I don’t have any magic answers, but I do have the advantage of hindsight. Although I can’t tell you how not to feel, I can tell you that with each phase and stage of FTD, as your loved one’s behavior and level of withdrawal changes, so will your resilience. Your strength will come from those of us who have gone before you and survived. Think of it as a marathon, with some runners just finishing and some just beginning. You will get to the finish line in the end. It’s not the end you want, but it is an end. You will handle the cramps and blisters along the way, because you are travelling with someone you love and they need you to help them reach the finish line. If you don’t love them, then I admire you even more, because this is not a journey for sissies. This marathon is only for the stout of heart and those with levels of determination that would defy gravity.

The loneliness of the long-distance runner cannot be underestimated. Take heart from the people on the sidelines, cheering you on. They may be people you know, or total strangers, but they are there, waving their flags and handing out cups of water.

As you escape into your quiet world tonight, when the tumult of the day has finally fallen into a calmer place, close your eyes, breathe deeply and exhale the loneliness. Feel it leaving your body and just enjoy the peace. For tomorrow will bring new challenges, new belligerence, new meanness.

You can do it. I know you can.

Breathe.

Return to the scene of the FTD crime!

After three years in the wilderness (well, not really, but it sounds better than “after three years living somewhere else”). After three years away from my home, last weekend I took the plunge and returned to where it all began. My war with FTD that is.

Seven years ago, my husband was diagnosed with frontotemporal degeneration. We lived together in the home we had shared with our family for the previous seven years. Five years later, he died. Broken down into a myriad of confused pieces by the degeneration of his brain, he slipped away peacefully at the place he was living, ten months after he had left our home for the last time.

Last weekend, I went back. I had driven by, but never been inside since the day I left, about four months after he moved into a care facility. I couldn’t manage his behaviors at home any longer, not and work to support us both too. I left the house because, well, now I’m not really sure why. I just knew I couldn’t stay there. Maybe because I felt so alone, maybe because the house felt too big. I don’t really know. It felt like the right thing to do at the time. I have said several times that I didn’t think I would ever live there again.

But last Saturday, I changed my mind. It’s allowed, right?

I went back to look at the house since the lady who was renting it had moved on to pastures new. I knew some updating would be required, so I went to see just what needed to be done. All week, I had been going back and forth between the choices I had. Do I rent again? Do I sell? Or – do I go back?

Well, I have decided go back.

I am going back to live there because I found that it was not as emotionally disturbing as I thought it would be. Like most anticipated, maybe even dreaded events, it was not nearly as bad as I had imagined. It actually still felt like home. There were a couple of tearful moments, but certainly not the anguish I was anticipating. The tears came from good memories. From fun and funny times. From love. Love for my husband, love for my family. I realized it was not the house that gave me bad memories, but FTD. 

FTD was the bad guy, not my home. Not the place where we laughed with friends, played with our grandchildren, relaxed in our pajamas and laughed at the stupid things that noone else would ever find funny.

FTD was the destroyer of all that, not the house. There are no do-overs with FTD. It’s done now, no going back.

But I can go back to the place where I feel at home.

Oh yes, it needs a little makeover and a new hairdo, but that’s good. When it’s done, it will look different. It will be different. A little like me. Changed forever but with the essence of what it is still intact.  My home.

My husband loved our house.  When we relaxed out by the pool, for a long time we had a favorite CD – Crowded House Greatest Hits. Our favorite track was “Don’t Dream It’s Over”. As I drove away from the house on Saturday it came on the radio.

Whatever you believe, the final decision was made and confirmed…..

FTD – R and D? Finally! Happy New Year Arnold!

So here we are. 2015. Happy New Year! I hope that FTD is kinder to you this year. It seems like we are finally seeing a little money being made available for research into defeating the invader into our lives – FTD. Check out this link to further details:

http://www.healthline.com/health-news/nih-grants-30-million-to-study-frontotemporal-dementia-011015#1

As you may know, Arnold Pick is arguably the most famous person to describe a premature kind of dementia that we now know as FTD. He called it “Dementia praecox” In 1891, Dr. Pick described rapid cognitive disintegration, often beginning in the late teens or early adulthood.  Nowadays, frontotemporal degeneration refers to a group of conditions. But at the end of the nineteenth century, work was just beginning on discovering more about this group of disorders, which originally were thought to be psychiatric in nature.

There had been many other physicians, neurologists and psychiatrists all the way back to 50 B.C.E, when a man called Lucretius used the term  “dementia” to describe “being out of one’s mind”.

So, after two thousand and sixty-five years, it’s probably about time for some some money to be put into research, since so much is still unknown about this demon that we battle every day. We hear about Alzheimer’s Disease ad nauseum. I truly understand that caring for anyone with any kind of cognitive disorder is draining,  deflating, soul-destroying. Believe me I know. But the powers that be really need to wake up to the fact that the vast majority of people who develop Alzheimer’s Disease are elderly and require a completely different kind of care to those amongst us who have three children under the age of ten, or teenagers who are grappling with the fact that their parent is not their parent anymore.

Awareness is paramount to the cause of those young men and women who are the partners, wives, brothers and sisters of those afflicted by the bastard disease. Those people who have had their lives snatched away, chewed up and spit out so that their loved one is now an infantile version of their former self. Those beloved ones who are thirty-some, forty-some and fifty-some years old and who will never again understand their role in life. It’s not as rare as one might think or be led to believe by the article above.

Lucretius knew. Arnold knew. They just didn’t really know what they knew then. I would love for them to be spirited to the here and now and see how epidemic their discoveries have become. Of how millions of lives are affected. I wonder what they would think of the vast array of technologies and advances available to us now and despite our knowing much more than they did then, we still don’t know enough to make it go away. Maybe we would know more if we dedicated more time and resources. If we threw everything we had at the bastard disease. If politicians were less concerned about where their next “business’ trip is coming from (or going to). If big pharma were less focused on making money selling their wares and more focused on finding cures. If governments (and not just ours) were dedicated as if it were their own spouse that needed the help.

The zeitgeist needs to change. If you have loved or even just met someone for whom FTD is a reality, you know that social perception and awareness is light years behind the reality.

FTD is occurring globally on an ever-increasing scale. Social media groups are popping up all over the place, with more and more new members seeking support from one another. There are scant resources to help them. They only have each other. The lack of knowledge, the guilt, the resentment, the love. It’s all there. People don’t know which way to turn. There are people who gladly share their knowledge or experience, but sometimes it all seems so futile, Is this what it was like for those people who experienced those things of which we are now so accepting but were the FTD of their day? HIV/AIDS?  Unwed mothers? Homosexuality? I realize that those things also carried (carry?) social stigmas, but FTD can do that too.

Friends, or those we once thought were friends, shy away, not calling or coming to visit. Making excuses not to go out together. It all comes down to fear. Fear of the unknown, of the “I don’t know what to say”. Of feeling embarrassed.

Sometimes I wish someone famous would develop FTD. Then maybe people would sit up and listen. Not that I would actually wish the bastard disease on my worst enemy of course, but anything that would bring a huge public eye-opening about what is happening would be a major breakthrough.

We’ve all heard of Arnold Pick, but most people have not. If he were here now, more glamorous and in a position of power, people would really sit up and listen, right? Right, dream on. I guess there are too many people and groups with vested interests in too many other things.

I always think it’s sad that money dictates how much attention, time and resources are dedicated to one thing or another. If we are humanists, shouldn’t we be doing these things for the greater good? Of course, the researchers all have families to feed too, so I can’t begrudge them that. Just don’t want to line any fat cats already-bulging pockets. Anyway, not to be ungrateful, I think it’s wonderful that $30 million is dedicated to our cause.

To end on a lighter note,  here’s a little dementia humor…….

 

 

Thanks to FTD – (un)Happy Birthday! Cheers! (with just a little dash of sarcasm)

Birthdays don’t have the same meaning once FTD takes a hold. For you or your loved one. Somehow the apathy, lack of insight and total indifference to anything once joyous overwhelm all concerned. Despite best efforts, it is difficult to enjoy those high days and holidays (more to come on that topic in the next couple of weeks).

Anyway, tomorrow is my birthday. My birthday three years ago was a significant turning point in our lives. Not least my husband’s. It was the last day he spent at our home. At three o’clock that afternoon, after waiting around the house all day making phone calls, faxing papers and hiding my anguish, I took him to an inpatient psychiatric unit where I left him, never to return.

So, as hard as I might try, it is difficult for me to “celebrate” the day of my birth anymore. The day comes tinged with sadness and a sense of disbelief that it was three years ago. A feeling of shock that I actually went through with it and took him. Despair (still), that I had to do it for the sake of all our safety, not least his. You may come to (or already have) a similar point in your FTD journey.

It is such a personal, individual moment, just like a birthday really. It belongs to you and you alone. Your feelings as you take those steps to changing your lives forever will be unique to you. Painful, baffling, fearsome, but unique. For me, that turning point shaped the next three years and still does to a certain extent.  If you have been together for a long time, as many of us have, or your FTD’er is your parent, making the decision to move them out of your home is devastating. Then, once the decision is made, you have to actually do it. That’s the kicker. Physically taking them and knowing they are not coming back. They are blissfully unaware of course. Well, if you have played your cards right and not told them. Please don’t tell them. Don’t discuss it with them. Don’t ask them. They are no longer your partner in these kind of decisions. You have become a parental figure and must make these agonizing choices for them now.

They won’t like it of course. Anything that changes their routine, their comfort zone, will not be popular.  That’s why you are not going to run it by them for approval. It’s like choosing your child’s elementary school. You don’t really consider their preferences when they are five after all. It’s the same for your FTD’er. Not capable of making informed decisions or good choices.

You may find it hard to find a “good” place. Of course “good” is an entirely subjective term. A psychiatric inpatient unit is only a temporary measure. After that you will need to find a more permanent residence.  One of the most difficult things is not having the person who previously shared these decisions with you at your side. Hopefully, you have a family member or good friend who will help you. Someone who can remain objective and is not swayed by the emotion of actually doing what you’re doing. Rushing around town to look at suggested places is, at the very least, stressful.

You don’t really know what you’re looking for or at. You don’t really want to do it, so you still hang on to the faintest hope that even now, there may be, just may be, the possibility that it will all be ok and you can take them home after all. Depending on where you live and how much financially you have to contribute, there are other stressors too. Finding $6-8,000 a month is no mean feat. And believe me, not everyone has your best interests at heart. Don’t assume that because they claim to be healthcare facilities that they actually care about you or your FTD’er. It’s big business, residential care.  Choose carefully and don’t give in or give up. Don’t believe everything you are told and don’t settle. Make it very clear from the outset that you know what’s what (even if you don’t, you will find out). Speak authoritatively and make it clear that you are the one in charge of your FTD’er’s care and they are merely working for you. Which they are. And for $6-8,000 a month, they’d damn well better be good.

So, now you’ve actually got them to their new digs – now what? What does that mean for you? Thanksgiving 2011 was a quiet affair in our household. We spent the day at home, each of us internalizing what had happened and thinking about how things were going down at the psych unit. I called of course, but my husband was still raging and unable to understand what was happening. He was quite dangerous at that point, throwing furniture and trying to escape at every opportunity. After a few days of medications, we were able to visit and talk to him on the phone. But he never understood that he would never come home again. So, for the person with FTD, the transition from home to residential care means change, uncertainty, fear and insecurity. All the same things it means to you. Your life has taken on new meaning. New horizons.  A different life.  Regardless of your relationship before, moving your FTD’er into care is unsettling for everyone. But it has to be done sometimes for safety, for peace of mind.

So, my birthday brings mixed emotions. My husband’s birthday is ten days after mine. This year he would have turned sixty. The fact that many of our friends are celebrating this milestone too over this past year and into next brings feeling of envy and sadness. The parties, the cruises, the trips and other celebrations all serve to remind me that we will never experience those things together again. I am happy for them of course and don’t begrudge them any of it.  I just miss my darling at this time of the year more than any other. From October to January, we had our anniversary, both our birthdays, and his favorite time of year – Christmas and New Year. So, I approach this upcoming holiday season with more than a little heaviness in my heart. It’s my favorite time of the year too, at least it used to be. I still like it but it no longer holds the same excitement.

So, Happy Birthday to both of us. I’m sure that wherever he is, he is raising a glass of something in a toast.

The Dance

I am very happy to announce that the story of our journey through frontotemporal degeneration is now published and is now available from the Amazon bookstore.

Writing and publishing it has certainly been a journey in and of itself. I used my journals from the time when my husband was first diagnosed and set the story into a context which describes our early life together. I had wonderful memories upon which to draw. Our letters, mementos and musical memories all contributed to the overall picture. I hope that this serves to illustrate how much our life together was changed by the bastard disease.

Of course, during the writing of the book, I had to go over and over the story many times. The living of it was painful and the writing of it was equally so. I cried almost as much writing it as I did living it. Even now, two years after my husband died, I still want to share with him the sense of accomplishment I feel at having got it all down on paper. But of course, it isn’t all of it. Each time I read it, I think of little things that happened in between the experiences in the book. About things he did and said, things I did and said. But the book isn’t really about me. It is about how this disease causes brain degeneration and ultimately, life degeneration. Our lives were broken down, one brain cell at a time.

Even though my life was irrevocably changed by our experience, my husband’s was changed and ended by it. So it isn’t about me. It’s about our love. It’s about the life we shared. It’s about what it did to him and vicariously, to me. Most of all, it’s about us. Who we were, and who we became.

I speak with other people who are caregivers for loved ones with FTD all the time. I see how their lives are changed too. Daily, weekly, monthly. But the big change is forever. We are forever changed by our experience and what FTD brings to us and takes away from us.

There are many cliches about losing someone you love. So yes, there is a hole in my heart. Yes, a piece of me is missing, never to return. And yes, I will never “get over it” (and yes, I know that’s not grammatically correct, but you take my point). “Getting over” your whole life is probably impossible. I’m not even going to try. I have been through it, around it, got stuck in what was left of it and have somehow reached a place where I can handle it.

FTD made the holes in my life and my heart. The scar tissue that has grown over the holes is a fine, permeable barrier that sometimes lets sadness in and out. The FTD is gone now. It left my life but it touched me in such a way that I cannot let it go completely. I even wrote an article called “Enough”. I have not published it because I am not yet sure that it is completely over for me. Touching the lives of people who are still battling with the bastard disease remains important. Maintaining contact for what is happening to those people who are in the throes of FTD, or just beginning their journey seems like the right thing to do for now. How long that desire will last, I don’t know. I just know that right now, it still feels a little like a thread of a connection to what happened to us.

And I still need it. I’m not quite ready to say “Enough”.

I hope that you enjoy the book. It was written from the heart, as is all my work. I felt the need to get the story out there, not because we’re important, or because I am vainly seeking attention. But because when it happened to us, so little was known about FTD. So few people were being diagnosed, and so many were and are still struggling every day. I receive comments from some that my blog sometimes lifts their spirits and that is all I need – to know that maybe it was not all in vain.

That maybe our battle was just a skirmish that will contribute to winning the huge war on all kinds of dementia. I have to hope that it is possible. I have to hope that every little thing we went through was for something. I don’t know what it is yet and I may never know.

I hope your FTD days are as peaceful and calm as possible. That you are able to find a way to handle the terrible days with love and humor.

FTD – Happy Anniversary, you bastard

Today is the 38th anniversary of our wedding. In 1976, we were bright-eyed and eager to see what life had in store for us. I am so glad we didn’t know that FTD was going to invade our lives and destroy what we had built for thirty-six years.

I cried today. That’s not really unusual. I was sad and my dog brought me his bone. That made me cry. I guess it wasn’t far away, under the surface and that simple act of innocent kindness brought it out. It was then that I realized that our anniversary is still significant to me, even though my husband died two years ago. I realized that nothing –time, distance or circumstances will ever change that. People ask me if I’m dating – “You’re still young!” and look at me strangely when I say that it never crosses my mind and I don’t see a time when it ever will. Spending almost forty years with someone that you love so unconditionally and they you, makes that unthinkable.  The things one has to do and endure when caring for someone with FTD  have somehow made me more detached from reality. I can engage in the stuff of life – fun, laughter,smiles, sadness and joy. But I am so changed by my experience that I am almost a different person entirely than that hopeful, full-of-dreams girl that I was in 1976. People have been on the receiving end of this new person and are sometimes shocked I think, by how different she is from the old me.

FTD destroys lives and dreams. But it never destroyed my love. Somehow, I was able to separate the love from the horror. At times, it was as if everything that was happening was not happening to us. I have written about love and FTD many times. It was a driving factor in my FTD experience.  I cannot imagine how I would have coped without it. My own love for my husband, the love I knew that he still felt for me, even though it was masked by the bastard disease, and the love I had for our family as I witnessed their pain. The journey was like walking a path to a destination you never want to reach. As painful as it is, you know that reaching the end will be even more so. And there is nothing you can do to stop the relentless onward march towards your destiny.

In 1976, I imagined my destiny to be somewhat different. White dress, first waltz, flowers and cake. Handsome husband, first home, fun, fun, fun. He only forgot once, after about 3 years. He remembered after he had dropped me off at work. I got the best bouquet and champagne dinner that day 🙂

A year before he died, FTD made him forget too. The bastard disease created another hole in his brain and our anniversary slipped through. That last anniversary we were together, our son came round with a card for us and my husband was devastated that he had forgotten. So my son gave him the card to give to me. That made him feel better that he thought I thought he’d remembered.  Even in the depths of his confusion, he felt the love. One month later, he moved into his first residential home and ten months after that, he died.

Of course, the thirty-eight years were not all fun, fun fun, even before the FTD. We had challenges, just like everyone does. At first, when FTD came along, we carried on as ‘normal’. As you know, the onslaught is so insidious, it is shocking at times to realize that things have changed. Then suddenly –Bam! Your groom/bride can’t speak properly anymore. Or they’re hiding things, or spending all your money. You are inexplicably broke and getting thrown out of your house. Or you are bailing your loved one of out of jail. Thankfully, those last two things did not happen to me, but they do to someone who cares for a person with FTD. The bastard disease has a blatant disregard for propriety, respect for others or socially acceptable behavior.

When you make those promises -“In sickness and in health”, when you’re twenty years old, you don’t really understand exactly what it is you’re signing up for. So when the ‘sickness’ is FTD, those promises are really put to the test. But for me, it was not something I had to think about. Maybe I have innate qualities that I didn’t know about, I’m not sure. But I really don’t think I did anything heroic, or anything that all of you are not doing for your loved one.

So what is the point of my blog today? Other than catharsis, I wanted to share how FTD has uncovered things about me that I didn’t know before. In 1976, I wasn’t a nurse, wasn’t a mother, wasn’t a wife until October 30th. I was twenty years old. No-one even knew what FTD was then. I’m glad I didn’t. I guess the point of my writing today is to try to impress upon you how important being in the moment is. Usually I try to offer some kind of encouragement and advice about how to handle your own and your family’s emotions amid the turmoil of FTD. I don’t think I can do that today. Because some experiences and emotions are so personal and unique, that to tell you how to handle them would almost be an insult. You are you, I am me. I just told you that I am not the me I was. I am irrevocably changed by experience. You will be too. The transformation has already started. Your metamorphosis into the post-FTD man or woman is already under way. You can’t stop it,  just like you can’t stop the FTD. All you can do is go with it. Watch in wonder as it appears. I wish I could liken it to a beautiful butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. But I can’t. I can’t promise you will be a more beautiful you –outside or inside. But you will be different, that I do know. Your life will emerge as something completely new. Post-FTD, without the stresses and strains of the practicalities of caring for someone with a debilitating, terminal condition, you will probably be baffled as to who and what you are.

I wish I had an answer. I may never know the answer. I don’t even know if there is an answer.  I am full of admiration for those of you who are still doing what I did every day. My heart breaks for you because I know what is to come. Now I know. I didn’t know in 1976, thank goodness. I was able to have a full and happy life and marriage. We had many champagne moments. I am so grateful for that. My life is still full. It’s full of sons and grandchildren and other family members. I have grown closer to all of them as a result of what we went through. Going back to an earlier comment ” Are you dating yet?”, all I can say is –why would I want to expose anyone else to what our family has been through? How could they possibly understand our pain. They weren’t there, they don’t know. It would not be fair to anyone, an outsider if you will,  to expect them to understand.

I make no apology for the somber tone in my post today. It’s a sad day for me. Tomorrow is a new day and I will bounce right back and be the new me again.  These days are a reminder of what once was. Of what I had, what we had and did. So it’s all good. I have wonderful memories. Even some of my FTD memories are good or at least funny. But there are many more non-FTD memories. From 1976 until 2012, it was a terrific ride. From 2012 until today, I have been able to reflect and rebuild.  FTD could not take that away from me. I may have been down, but never out. My husband loved the feisty me. She’s still around as everyone around me will attest. Bastard FTD. Ha! Couldn’t take that away.

My husband loved champagne. We drank it at every opportunity. I will be having some later.

Happy anniversary to us.

FTD – Life in the Past Lane

 

My post today is not really about FTD. More about what has happened in the post-FTD era. Your experience will be vastly different to mine. Perhaps my sharing will help you. But I think it will help me more. FTD has shaped my life in ways that are somewhat indescribable, but I will do my best.

Last September, I had cause to get together with family members and many old friends for the first time since the bastard disease took my husband. I was able to successfully coordinate seeing many people in the space of 2 weeks during a visit back to the UK.

My husband had died a year before and I had not seen most of them in the interim. I expected it would be emotional and it was. More for all of them than me. I had had a whole year in which to begin reshaping my life. They all said I have not changed. But I am changed. I think for the better. I have a life that my husband and I started together. A different life than the one I envisaged six years ago, but still a life. A life that we filled together with stuff, people, and love. Only now I am enjoying it without him.

People never cease to amaze me. Their perception of widowhood is varied. Of course, I am not the only widow they know. There are many women much younger than me who have arrived at widowhood unexpectedly under much more tragic circumstances.

One of the things you ask yourself when newly widowed is “Who am I?” You have been someone’s daughter, wife, mother, sister/son, husband, father, brother your whole life. Figuring out who you’ve become in the interim is not easy.

Then you realize that you haven’t become anyone else. You’re still you. All those little things you never liked about yourself are still there. Ha!

But, here’s the thing. The new you is the old you with a new view on the world. It’s as if you can see things more clearly somehow. When you’re part of a couple, a partnership, you tend to like the same things, move in the same circles. That’s why you’re a couple —right? You even do things just because you know it pleases the other person. When you don’t have to that anymore, it feels weird. You don’t really know what to do.  But then you begin to see things from an entirely different perspective. Instead of seeing the world as one of a pair, and what it means to both of you, a collective being like the Borg, you see it as a single entity. What it means to you, not what it means to us. That’s not to say that when you were part of a couple you didn’t have independent thoughts and opinions. Just that somehow, those things are less important than just being us. 

Of course, you miss all the old things. The sharing, the affection, those small things that were only funny or meant something to the two of you. That happens while they are still alive. But acceptance brings a power from within you. A power that you didn’t even realize you had. It’s the power of you. Not pleasing someone else brings freedom. Not the kind that you would have wished for necessarily. But the freedom to have opinions, make decisions, do things that you may never have even considered before.

Ours was not the kind of relationship where one partner had dominance over the other. Not the kind where either told the other one what to do. It was built on the respect for one another’s feelings and sensitivities that develops over many years of watching and experiencing life’s trials and tribulations together. Years of success and failure, tears and joy. You may not always like your partner, but you always love them. Even when you don’t like their behavior, opinions or decisions. You still love them, if your love is true and unbending.

So the freedom that widowhood brings is bitter sweet. You are free to say, think, do whatever you please. But often you don’t want to. Or you have forgotten how. Or maybe you never even knew.

I went from my parents house to being married, other than a short period where I lived away from home with friends. So complete independence was somewhat of a mystery to me. I had never lived alone, never been financially independent, never owned my own home. Never did any of the things that young, single women take for granted these days.

I was born into an era of building and rebuilding lives that had been irrevocably changed by World War II. My own parents and their families had been affected in all the ways that wars cause to people. They had lost family members, been bombed in their homes and lived off government food rations for years. My paternal grandfather survived the D-Day landings. My maternal grandfather was captured and taken as a prisoner of war for years. My mother never got over that. He was gone during some of her most formative years. She learned to be independent, take care of her little brother while her mother went to work. 

In the absence of another provider, there was little choice. Learn how to do it, or live in abject poverty My grandfather was appalled when he returned home after the war that my grandmother knew how to change an electrical plug and do other home repairs. Before that she had been a housewife, relying on the breadwinner to care for her and their children. He wanted to know who (what man) she had in the house to show her how to do all those things. But there was none, she just figured out what she had to do to survive.

When I was born, ten years after the end of the war, things were beginning to improve. There was more food, a better infrastructure and just an overall feeling of hope. The 1950s and 60s were a re-awakening of everything good that had been destroyed for many people.

The fighting spirit instilled in my mother by her parents and their experiences has somehow been passed to me. Whether it’s genetic or not, I’m not sure. My grandfather survived three years of starvation and god-knows-what in prisoner-of-war camps in Italy and Germany. He never spoke of it, but whatever it was that kept him going is most certainly present in my mother and has been passed on to me.

I am not comparing the experience I went through in caring for my husband and his dementia for five years to my grandfather’s imprisonment. Not at all. But I came to understand a different kind of incarceration. One of the spirit. The kind that beats you down so many times, you often wonder if you can survive it. It’s not a physical beating; there are no visible scars. It is emotional bruising that takes a long time to get used to. I say that because it doesn’t go away. You get used to it, but it doesn’t go away. It’s like a permanent deathmark. A port wine stain of the soul. No surgery could take it away.

You feel like your port wine stain makes you stand out. Being by yourself in the midst of a crowd of people, feeling different, is a strange experience. I wouldn’t call it loneliness. I don’t feel lonely. I miss my husband, of course I do. I miss the familiarity, the everyday grind of normality. But I often wonder what we would be doing if things had taken a different course. I don’t dwell on it too long because it’s not a very productive way to think. It’s hard to describe your thought process when experiencing losing someone close. It’s different for everyone of course. No one had what you had. No one shared what you shared.

It’s so easy to slip into Clichéland —“I’ve lost half of me”, “I feel like part of me is missing”. All true of course, but so inadequate when trying to describe how you really feel. I’ve read many books, articles, newsletters sent by Hospice and the funeral home for the first year after my husband died. They are well-intended and actually sometimes food for thought. But still, there is this indescribable hole inside me that defies illustration.

Truth is, sometimes you forget what’s happened. You get on with the day-to-day stuff. Your lost one pops into your mind frequently of course, but you have to work, sleep, eat, see people, so the experience becomes even more personal. Even less worthy of sharing. Because really, no one want to know. They don’t want to see it, hear about it, have to remember it. I’m not being self-pitying here, just realistic. People tell me their own woes. Hospital visits, deceased parents, sick kids. It’s all just life.

I accept life. I accept that shit happens. Most people fall into two categories. They were part of what happened. They saw the anguish, the pain, the screaming, the tears. Or they weren’t. So the only point of reference they have is how it affected them. How close they were to the proceedings. How much they were involved. Other than that, it’s all mine.

Seeing people who remind me of my marriage and life with my husband is often painful. But there is a kind of numbness that exists. Psychoanalysts would probably say that it is my brain trying to protect itself from the pain. But I have faced the pain. It’s there. I can’t ignore it. I have embraced it just like someone who has to inject themselves with insulin every day. I accept that it is a part of me that will never go away. Having pain doesn’t mean I can’t be happy with my lot in life.

It is what it is. An overused saying but oh so true. So, as my life is not what I envisaged before the bastard disease took hold of it, I don’t really envisage any more. I take moments, days and keep them in my new memory bank. I have put the other one onto a virtual jump drive in my mind, where I take it out frequently and look at it. Sometimes every day, sometimes less often. It’s like a photo album that catalogues all my experiences for thirty-eight of the first fifty-six years of my life. For all I know, I could have another fifty-six left to go yet. I’ll need another jump drive.

I have other albums from before. From happy childhood days. From teenage years. I look at those too. But this new album that I’m working on; this new jump drive that is my widowed life is a little different. Because the pictures are superimposed on the pictures from all the other albums. So, sometimes, the pictures are out of focus. Blurry. Unclear as to what they mean or symbolize.

I quite like it. The blurriness. I can see what’s happening, I can see what happened before. Some people around me can only see this album. Only see today’s pictures. It takes a special kind of vision to be able to sort the images from one another.

So, where to from here? I’m not making any plans. I like the day-to-day. I find that when you make plans, something usually comes along that presents another path. Sometimes it’s better than the original plan. I like that. And if it’s not, well, so be it, It’s just another file on the jump drive.

FTD was an experience in my life. Not one I would have chosen, but one that came along anyway. “It” took away what I had become, what my husband was to me. Then, eventually, it took his physical entity. If you are the type of philosopher that believes everything happens for a reason, then I am still waiting to find out what that reason is. But it’s not been that long. I can wait. Until FTD came along, my life, our life, was ticking along quite nicely, just like everyone else’s. Ups, downs, but mostly in between.

That’s life. That’s how mankind has moved through thousands of years of existence. Doesn’t help when life/FTD/cancer/people step in and change it, but no one ever said that you could have everything you wanted.

That’s life.