Dimentia, not mine

One of my Aunts is fast approaching 90. For the last 6 or 7 years she's been "slipping" a bit, confusing who people are, where she is, when she is, all that stuff.

I was talking to her today and she asked where I lived. I told her and she told me where she thought she was still living, a place she lived 40 to 50 years ago, and then told me I should come visit her, meaning the old place, sometime.

It's so bizarre to watch this crumbling of the mind. I've seen it in others, family and not, but it's just weird. It really has me wondering just how our brains function. Or, how they don't function.

It's very hard to watch, Wes. My grandfather suffered Alzheimer's before he died. He completely forgot who I was about five years before he died. I was upset with myself that I didn't feel like I really grieved him when he died, but then I realized that I had been grieving his loss five years before we lost him.

It does make me worry for my father, since these things are believed to be genetic.

We are blessed that my maternal grandmother is 99 and has zero dementia. She reads a book a day. I've already told my boss that I don't care what special projects we may have going on - I'm going to be going home for her 100th birthday.

Sorry about your aunt, I do know how hard it is on those who love her.

You sure it isn't yours? ;)

I have been lucky so far in my life that no one very close to me has had this problem, yet, although my husband's grandfather is obviously starting down this path. The last time we saw him, he overheard us telling someone else where we lived. He then proceeded to ask us if we knew ourselves, because for a moment he had lost track of who we were. Very heartbreaking.

One other experience I had was quite odd. My then-husband and I had just purchased a new house. Our first meeting with the next door neighbor he kept asking us if we'd bought the car. We were utterly confused, until other things in the conversation made us realize he wasn't quite all there, and it eventually became clear he was trying to ask us if we bought the house. I don't know if this sort of substituting the wrong word is common; it isn't what they show in movies.

Sorry to hear about your aunt Wes. I've never known anyone with Dementia or Alzheimers, but it's one of my biggest fears.

I'm so sorry to hear about your aunt:( I'm a nurse and most of my patients are geriatric and many of them have dementia or Alzheimers. It's difficult to see people like that, especially in advanced stages when things get really ugly. Often times it's even harder to see their family see them like that.

I am so sorry to hear this. My step father had it and for years I watched him decline. The hardest part for me was that he was such a great story teller....he was a Pearl Harbor survivor ...and I loved to listen to him tell me the stories. Not just those stories ....but all of them that he had. He had hitch hiked across the US to try to get to his mother in CA when he was 12 things like that. Well by the time I met my husband...my step dad could no longer tell those stories. It made me so sad to watch that go away and know that my husband never got to know that part of him. It is a long drawn out process most of the time and so difficult...but like Robin stated....I almost felt as if I lost him years before he passed.

If you ever need to offline chat.....(I know you don't know me) but pm me and I will be there for you. Again I am so sorry to hear this.

I appreciate the sentiments guys, truly.

This is not ..... bad, it just is. It's not my first time at this rodeo either. While it is sad, I still remember her as she was and that .... has significance as well. There is no way that I know of to halt it or slow it down so no matter how I feel about it, it's not going to change. Perhaps I've learned, a bit,how to pick my battles and were I to rage or rant against this one, I would simply lose.

So, I'll just be there, answer the same question 20 times in 20 minutes and be glad for the lucid times she still has.

I really do appreciate you guys trying to help me though. It's a niceness that isn't lost on me.