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Our First Steps While Living with Alzheimer’s


Kate’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis was the most serious problem we had faced in our marriage, and it immediately changed my priorities about life. Spending as much time as possible with her jumped to the top of the stack. That sticks with me to the present time. We started having lunch and spending the afternoon together every day. We had always enjoyed movies and began attending them once a week.

Throughout our marriage, we had attended many musical and theatrical events. That was a natural place for us to begin as we sought to “enjoy life and each other”. We were already subscribers to the concerts of our local symphony orchestra and the local community theaters. To that, we added periodic trips to other cities within a two-hour drive of our home in Columbia. Wherever we traveled, we often attended musical and theatrical events.

We stayed busy with these activities, and, as we had hoped, we enjoyed life and each other. And there was much more to come.

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Kate’s Alzheimer’s Diagnosis and Our Thoughts About the Future

For months, I’ve reported on positive changes in Kate’s behavior. She is better now than she was two or three years ago. This doesn’t mean that we have found a way to cure Alzheimer’s, but even at Stage 7, we have found ways to live joyfully.

Occasionally, people ask me how we’ve been able to live so well. I’ve given that a lot of thought and would like to share those thoughts in several upcoming posts.

Today, I’ll focus on our immediate response to Kate’s diagnosis. It was January 21, 2011, exactly one week after she turned seventy. Although we had seen the first signs of dementia more than five years before, the reality of the diagnosis frightened us. Our marriage had been filled with joy, and we were afraid that Alzheimer’s would make that a thing of the past.

We went directly from the doctor’s office to Villa Tronco, a favorite restaurant of ours. We began a conversation that continued for several weeks, perhaps months. We had been caring for our four parents (and my dad’s girlfriend after my mother died) for twenty-two consecutive years. We were aware of the many challenges we were likely to face. Now, it was time to focus on our own future.

We spent much of our time discussing how each of us felt and the first steps we should take. We talked about when to tell our children and our friends. We considered the practical issues, such as legal and financial decisions.

We reflected on the things we had enjoyed during our marriage and wondered how long we could continue living so well. We had no idea but made a decision that worked then and now. We would just enjoy life and each other for as long as we could. I’ll have more to say about this in following posts.