Telling More Friends

In the past 3-4 weeks, I have told a few more friends about Kate. The first of these was the wife of a former colleague of mine at UT. We had gone to dinner and a play about three weeks ago. (We have known her and her deceased husband since we moved to Knoxville. He died of lung cancer almost 3 years ago. When our children were young, they had asked us to be their son’s guardian should anything ever happen to them; so we have a lot of history with her.) I called her several days after we had gone out and told her of the situation. She responded with all the empathy of a long-time friend. She also asked what she could do. I told her nothing other than continue being a friend. She asked about the possibility of going to lunch with Kate once in a while. I told her that would work well. This past Friday she called and asked about a good time. I suggested today. That fit her schedule as well, and the two of them had a nice lunch.

A week ago today, I called Don Crawford who is a member of our church. His wife, Carol, also has Alzheimer’s. I told him that I had thought about calling him a number of times and went on to tell him that he and I were facing the same thing with our wives. He had not suspected. We had a comparatively brief conversation. He did let me know that they had known about Carol’s diagnosis for 8 or 9 years. This is the first spouse of an Alzheimer’s patient that I have spoken with whose reported a gradual decline somewhat like Kate’s. It also sounded as though their situation was quite similar to ours as well. I hope to talk with him at some time in the future to learn more.

This past week I needed to print something and have to use Kate’s computer to do that on the printer at home. When I did, I noticed a couple of emails to Kate from her librarian friends.  This is a group of about 5 former public school librarians. They had set a date for lunch this Thursday. Kate was the only one who hadn’t responded. I replied for her that she would be there but would leave early to meet a doctor’s appointment.

After sending the email, I decided the time had come to inform the group about Kate. Over the weekend, I called a member of the group. She is another long-time friend whom we had also met through university connections. I did not reach her but left a voice mail and gave her my email address suggesting that was a good way to reach me. She sent an email last night. This morning I spoke with her about 30-40 minutes.

In addition, I sent an email yesterday to someone who now lives in Kentucky. I used to work with her when she was with one of my major clients. We had been communicating about travel to France. I decided to let her know about Kate. So now the group of people who know about Kate has expanded, and my expectation is that this group will continue to expand over the next 6-12 months. After that, I expect that it will be commonplace.

I am feeling a bit relieved to be able to let people know. I think it may help them understand any changes they see in Kate. Probably more important for me is that it gives me a sense of comfort that I am not concealing everything which allows my base of support to enlarge. That will become more important in the next year.