Did you ever see that episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent that revolved around someone with EOAD?
I did and I do, Scissorjack. Mostly when it’s the end of the day, when I have forgotten things (such as paying bills), or even just looking in the mirror, so I try to avoid looking in the mirror. Now that Dondra is back in my life, much of that burden has been lifted.
Do I want to do away with myself?
No, Not yet, Scissorjack. I have two beautiful grandchildren and a son who would be too badly hurt by such a decision. Could I make a decision like that when the disease progresses?
I don’t know.
It’s an important question, and I thank you for asking it, Scissorjack.
Bill
Thank you, Bill.
Rob
No, can’t say as I ever have, Snooooopy. I will watch for it, though!
Thanks
Bill
Thanks again for doing this thread, Quasi. Just to address one thing, though: I’m pretty sure that what makes early-onset Alzheimer’s early-onset is that it strikes before age 65.
This thing runs in my family, too, so I’m unfortunately a little more familiar with it than I’d like to be.
Yes, that’s right, MsWhatsit. It differentiates it from “Early Stage” Alzheimer’s.
If I didn’t make that clear, I should have and I apologize.
Bill
How do you handle yourself when you have an event or an episode (not sure of the terminology) in a public setting? Do you have to give a lengthy explanation, or do you brush it off and move on? Does it even happen?
It has happened, Simmerdown. It has happened while driving (getting confused and disoriented) and I just pull over and think things through till I am back on track.
Now I don’t drive.
In the grocery store, signing a check or credit card slip: I simply say “I have Parkinson’s sorry” when my hands shake.
Sometimes the first words out of my mouth are, “Please be patient with me…” when dealing with a situation requiring my attention. That happens mostly on the phone.
People have been very kind in understanding.
But I have become somewhat of a recluse, Simmerdown.
Thanks
Bill
Do You ever have a tendancy to blame yourself for the problems you experience with the EOAD?
If I’ve ever made you think that, I apologize. Some of the problems that you are now dealing with are similar to what I’ve had to deal with because of ADD, but I’ve had my entire life to get used to them and know how to work around them.
With the people who would say “Oh I do/have done that”, I found it very useful for me to pick something very unusual from my childhood for an example. (Having my own “isolation booth” in second grade usually works)
My first question is are you losing your sense memory? So that, if you’re a touch typist, is that going?
My second question is: I read health news from a lot of different sources, and I think I’m pretty good at separating the wheat from the chaff. I see articles related to Alzheimers quite a bit; would you like me to pass on any I think you might be interested in? Or are you already getting that from fourty-leven people?
And if rjk and I swing through Atlanta this summer, would you be interested in getting together for a meet-up?
That’s a loaded question, Hon, but I’ll try to answer.
I’m real good at taking responsibility for my actions, Janis, but I’m not takin’ the rap for this one.
If some little wizard were to appear and say, “Give me 5 years off the end of your life, and I’ll let it be 1970 again”, I’d tell him to fuck off, because chances are, I’d wind up with this crap again anyway.
If I become incontinent, am I gonna blame myself? Nope. Just hope it doesn’t happen in public, that’s all! :eek:
Shit happens, little doll, and it has happened to me. Best just to deal with on a daily basis, I reckon.
For some reason that Wilburys song The End of The Line, just popped into my head.
I’m still going through the 5 Stages of Grief but I did, for a while, play the “blame game” on myself.
Didn’t change a thing. 
Thanks, Beth. You’re a very good friend, and I thank you for checking on me as you do. My best to the Clarkster! 
Bill
In retrospect, those words were a little harsh, and I didn’t mean to come across like I might actually say them to someone. It is, after all, meant kindly and it’s not the other person’s fault that they aren’t with me 24-7 to see me do those things again and again.
You haven’t made me think that, Z, so no apology is required.
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That’s a very good question about my “sense” memory, Z, and one of them is going, I believe: taste. Not all the time, but sometimes I feel like I may as well be eating cardboard. I also am an aroma therapy fan, so I “test” that sense by every now and then lighting a candle. I love cinnamon/orange.
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I have found that one can never know “too much”, Z, so I “feed my head” every chance I get. This site and this thread have been a huge help to me in that regard, so yes, I’d like to have anything you consider worthwhile reading, and thank you!
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I would love to meet you and rjk, so Come Onnnn Down! (or over;))
Thanks for reading and participating in the thread Zyada!
Bill
Sorry for the loaded question, but I figured you, like me, blame yourself or feel bad about things that are not your fault. Thanks for answering my question. hugs
Kein Problem, Kleine! 
B
Quasi - haven’t met you on these boards, but I wanted to pass on a quick but very sincere thanks for starting and keeping up with this thread (and your blog). My mom has early-onset Alzheimer’s, although she’s late stage at this point. So thanks, good luck, and hang in there! Schuyler.
Thank you, Schuyler!
My best to your Mom, but we (EOAD patients) are facing a very tough battle.
We’re not that easy to pigeon-hole, you see.
Because our hair isn’t falling out and we don’t soil ourselves, we MUST be okay!!!
No one looks at the “big picture”: That I might get into my car and kill someone with it, all because of a “Momentary Lapse of Reason.”
Please be there for her and forgive her - her mistakes, okay?
Best wishes
Bill
Thank you for this thread, and for your blog.
I am a nurse (RN)who works in mental health…specifically on a “dementia unit” in a psychiatric facility. Aproximately3/4th of my patients have Alzheimers and related Dementias while we have other patients with Pick’s, Multi-infarct or vascular dementias, Korsikooff’s and other problems.
Most of my patients have ended up in the facility because of agression or other behaviours that make them difficult to impossible to care for in regular long term care settings. Some are exceedingly violent when they come to us. A combination of time, medications, and “figuring what works” usually helps us settle our patients, but often they remain placement problems, and end up with us for years. (In theory we are supposed to be short stay, assess and corrcect problems, then go to long term care placements.) So they age with us, and we see them decline and die. I compare patient decline to the inverse of watching a child grow up… language, ability to maintain hygiene and grooming, other self care activities decline in similar ways to the way they increase in children. Sometimes just as rapidly, other times a lot slower.
Im going to start reading your blog. I don’t have a specific question for you right now, but I probably will, eventually. I also plan to make the blog known to my colleuges, we have a “Resource” binder where articles and links are available for the staff to read. I also have lost a number of relatives to this, including a beloved grandmother last September, so the interest in dementias is more than professional.
I’m also popping in here to ask if you have any questions for me?
On second read, I don’t mean to sound like any kind of expert, or deny you being the expert on your condition. I mean that I see a more progressed side on a daily basis, and I see the human face of the pateints and caregivers… just wondered if there is anything I could tell you about, not in a know it all way…
Julie?
I’m “flying by the seat of my pants”, Honey!
This is OJT for me. Every damn day!
I’m no “expert”. I’m just my own guinea pig, and trying anything and everything to try to save what’s left of my brain.
Please, please, PLEASE , don’t ever think you are saying something wrong or hurting my feelings, okay"
Let me try to describe it this way:
Every day I wake up, I wake up to a fresh, smooth , blank page.
And I’m ready to write.
Please (you and evryone), don’t lose touch with me, okay?
Thanks
Bill
Quasi - just wanted to say (as I know others have before) THANK YOU for being so visible on the boards with all of this. Your grace and sense of humor are good for us all. I took the liberty of forwarding links to this and your blog to a friend-of-a-friend whose husband is going through the same process, and I know the wife has been feeling so alone in having such a young husband with this crappy disease.
Which raises another question: are there any gender biases in EOAD? as in, does it affect males more than females or vice versa? or is it an equal-opportunity bastard?