THIS EVENING WILL BE VERY ROUGH - BUT HOPEFULLY WE CAN CHEER UP AN OLD & SICK FRIEND

[boykinlp]

Our guests left a few hours ago and my wife and I just finished cleaning up. All in all I thought the evening was a great success and it was great to see my friend once again. Tonight he was so much better than yesterday! Yesterday he sent chills down my spine when he came in. He was more alert and parts of his long term memory were coming back for small amounts of time - then seemed to faded away. Like most diseases, his wife said he has his good days and his bad days. After yesterday I consider today a good day! At least he says he recognized us tonight. He also recalled (or so he said) some of the things we did decades ago.

I BBQ'd a grill full of Ribeye steaks which are his favorite and he was so appreciative - but kept apologizing for his illness. We kept reassuring him and the evening went OK. Heart wrenching sad, but OK. Thankfully there were others here who also know him and they did help out quite a bit. I am glad we did this and I felt really good about doing something nice to help jog his memory - even of only for the moment. I'm also glad we got the opportunity to see him again. We made a date for next years visit and I just hope and pray it is still viable a year from now.

He showed a glimpse of his old sense of humor tonight and we joked about the old days even though he repeated things many times throughout the evening, but no one cared. I only hope he remembers that he had a great time with some old friends. Alzheimer's SUCKS and IMHO is worst disease a person could have.

Thank you ALL for your support - it was very encouraging and I do appreciate it!!

chief38, sounds like it went well. Many times, the evening can be worse for someone suffering this terrible condition. It’s called Sundowner's syndrome and refers to a group of symptoms, including increased confusion, agitation, and anxiety, that commonly occur in people with dementia or Alzheimer’s, particularly in the late afternoon and evening. But like you found out, many times they have vivid memories of something that happened years ago, and next to nothing from last week.

At the Birthday Party we threw for my sister, that particular day, basically her only spoken word was “Yep”, but when we sang her the Happy Birthday song, she sang along EVERY word. Think about it, that’s probably one of everybody’s longest memories!
Larry

 

[Old 44 Guy]

Chief 38. This brings a tear to my eyes. Just lost a friend, Joe C. I met in 1944 when we were both 13. Lost him last Dec. after an 80 year friendship. It hits a man real hard to lose so many friends as we age.

 

[ladder13]

Don’t know how I missed this, good on you Chief48.

 

[oldbrownhat]

...This type of situation makes me realize just how lucky and blessed we have been for 71 years. Not everyone gets to stay relatively healthy (mentally and physically) for the better part of their lives. Things like this smack me in the face and just serve as a reminder how lucky we really are!

Amen to that. My gf and I often remind ourselves of this. I'm approaching 73 and am aware of slowing down a little but still basically OK. Her mum died at 94 in June 2023 but said she didn't begin to feel old until her late '80's. She was pretty sharp until just near the end.