Genetic testing for Alzheimer’s currently seems to be an incomplete science. For these reasons I’ve never considered genetic testing.
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The stories I share in About Alzheimer’s have to do with the disease itself and how it has affected my mother. Even before I recognized that she had a problem, there were signs. So with the benefit of hindsight I was able to piece together some of those early signs. As time went by, there were behaviors that could be identified as part of a specific stage of the disease.
I’ve made reference in my writing to the log that I kept in the early years. That will be the foundation of many of my stories with the hope of putting some context and timeline to some of these symptoms. I know that I wondered at each stage what to expect. I continue to wonder and wish someone would write about late stage Alzheimer’s.
According to my notes and understanding, mom’s early stage symptoms that I tracked were indicative of stages 2 and 3 of the 7 stage GDS. She progressed through this mild stage of Alzheimer’s disease in less than 1 year.
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When I walked in and found the two of them asleep together, I just broke down in tears and started to revisit my decision to move her to a new memory unit. It had taken me months to make this decision and I had been so certain that it was the right one. Now, looking at mom and how comfortable she was with her friend, I was distraught at the thought of tearing her away from Henry.
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The interesting thing is that even prior to my Ahha! moment, I noticed certain things about her behavior but never connected it to dementia. I brushed things off as part of aging.
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Mom was not getting regular haircuts anymore so her hair was long and greasy and stringy. I decided it was time for a haircut and good washing so I told her we were going for a haircut. She just screamed at me that she didn’t want a haircut. It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t want a haircut.
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During one visit, I observed mom’s escalating separation anxiety and my father’s response to her anxiety. Any time he left the house, my mother paced and worried. She paced nervously all the while looking out the windows and opening the front door repeatedly to see if his car pulled in. She could get locked out in the heat or wander off and try to find him. And at his age, I worried that something could happen to him and he wouldn’t get home to her.
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