At a certain point, can’t you just say you’ve done enough? I don’t get why you have to keep on taking things from people. Why do you feel the need to take away so much from nearly 44 million people worldwide? Are you satisfied because you’re a $226 billion dollar industry?
I’m not talking to a politician. I’m not talking to a greedy person from Wall Street. I’m talking to Alzheimer’s disease; a disease that 1 in 9 Americans over the age of 65 are diagnosed with, and a disease that is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.
So again, Alzheimer’s, do you know what you take from people? Once loving grandparents either can’t recognize their grandchildren, or they tell them that they hate them.
It’s been so long that I don’t even remember when my grandmother was officially diagnosed with the disease. I’ve worked as a caregiver to the elderly for the last two summers, and I’ve been lucky enough to assist my own grandmother through the company I work for. While the time that I’ve been able to spend with her has been invaluable, it’s been the hardest two summers of my life because I’ve had to watch the decline first hand. The toll that Alzheimer’s takes isn’t just on the person it affects, but the entire family, and the network of staff that help people with the disease.
In my family, Alzheimer’s has created a strain on rock solid relationships because as the disease develops, the questions for the family get bigger and harder to answer. I love my family, and mostly I love my grandmother. I recently had a family member say to me in reference to my Mimi, “if she knew what was going on, she would be mortified.” We both understood the gravity of what had been said, and that it had been building up for a while, but I felt like it was the first time I had really noticed my grandmother's mental state.
Who do I have to complain to about this? Where can I file the, “my grandmother doesn’t remember sitting next to me at her own husbands funeral,” card? Or the, “I have to remind my grandmother that she’s home while we’re sitting in her own living room,” card? It’s not like there’s a Better Business Bureau for Alzheimer’s. I can’t write down the emotional toll it’s taking on all of us and ship it back to a return address.
And I can’t be so selfish to just think of how this has changed my family, and made me feel, I need to consider how my Mimi is feeling. She always says she’s just, “out to lunch,” so does that mean she doesn’t really know? How scary is it to not be able to remember twenty minutes into the past—or even two minutes?
Of course, just like any other disease I’m hoping and praying that something happens and Alzheimer’s is cured, and magically done away with forever. And I hope, and I pray that every family that has to live with this disease knows that if their loved one could control it, they would remember everything about them.
Every time I video call with my grandmother and she asks me how old I am, and where I've been recently, I think about how I used to go to her house every day after school. And I think about how we would read Clifford the Big Red Dog in front of the fireplace. And I think about how much she meant to me as a little girl, and how much she means to me now. I think about how as the disease gets worse, she might not remember it, but she’ll always love me just the same as I love her. So even though the disease will do what the disease does best - destroy - it can’t wipe out how much love a family really has for each other. Maybe on the surface, but not deep down. So until they find a cure, I'll try my hardest to remember even the smallest features of everyone I love, and pass them onto my grandmother as many times as she needs to hear it.
For my Mimi, who always calls me her sweetheart.
