Four years ago, I was down a grandparent but little did I know that I would be down two. When my grandad died, my grandmother died, too, but I didn't know it. My mom didn't know it. Nobody knew.
Dementia is a part of Alzheimer's disease that as time moves on, it will progressively get worse - and it has. Within four months after my granddad's passing, she began to forget things she would say in a conversation and found herself repeating a statement or question around three or four times. That moved onto her forgetting where she placed her phone, keys, remote control, and shoes - all of which would be in her face or on the table. Soon, she began to forget her medication and that's when my mom had to step in and seek professional help from a doctor.
The doctor claimed that my grandmother was okay and nothing was wrong with her, but my mom didn't believe her. My mom continued to take her to doctor's appointments before the doctor finally recognized that my grandmother was suffering from dementia. The doctor tried to rectify her wrong and catch the disease by putting a patch on my grandmother and giving her medicine, but she was already moving into the middle stage.
She had to be committed to a dementia patient facility where she can have care 24/7 and as soon as she stepped foot into the facility, it's like she forgot everything and everyone.
She entered the facility on September 2018 and by December of that same year, she couldn't tell who I was when I walked in the door. She mixed up my mom and my cousins, she called my brother by my uncle's name, and worst of all, she couldn't remember that my grandad had passed away and she said that she would always wait for him to come in and get her so they could go home.
It's been a year since she was committed and she's worse than ever before. She can barely hold a conversation and mumbles to herself about nonsense now.She can kind of understand who people are and what they say, but then she'll start mumbling to herself again and she's gone.
I might have 5 solid minutes with my grandmother before she stares at me blankly. She used to smile when I would scream her name when I walked in the door and now she just sits and stares at me when I walk in. I'll hold her hand when I walk her back to her room and she'll stand for 5 minutes trying to figure me out, but she never does - I just hold her hand and smile and continue walking with her.
She's not the same woman I grew up with and it's a heartbreaking sight that only a handful of families have to deal with.
There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease — it's just one of those things that you have to deal with and learn to accept that it's now a part of your family for the rest of your life.