Dementia/Alzheimers is not a linear disease. Each experience is as unique as the person suffering. Every caregiver has their own dynamic and carries that weight alone.
Watching a loved one decline is tragic; the continual loss incremental, yet monumental. The variables are many, the wins are few. Good days happen; offering glimpses of who they were before this all began.
The saddest part is when your loved one expresses awareness of the condition and you can see in their eyes the struggle and pain they are trapped in, yet there is nothing you can do to help them. All you can do is serve. Advocating and assisting them in daily living needs.
Cycling between heartbreak, frustration and numbness is exhausting and robs you from cherishing those moments of alertness and clarity.
Grief is on a low simmer and the dread and anxiety of what may unfold keeps you clinging to each day as if it were the last.
Dementia is relentless and cruel. The patient and loved ones all suffer.
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