A Dirty Truth About Slowing Down Alzheimer’s

Get ready for honesty and controversy

I have a dirty secret about slowing down Alzheimer’s.

“Dad, quit chewing the inside of your cheek!” our teenage daughter reminds her father, who has taken to gnawing on his buccal pouch until blood seeps from the corner of his mouth.

“I’m not!” he shouts, sounding much like a toddler in the middle of a tantrum. Sticking his tongue out a chewed-up hunk of something beige spills out and onto his lap and we all gag. “See, I’m not.”

My dark, masked truth is one that I’ve only shared with fellow caregivers in our monthly zoom calls. I’m not claiming every guardian feels this way. But I know many spouse-sitters who embrace this idea — even if they only disclose it in private.

“What are you doing home?” I ask my husband as he plods into the foyer, leaving a trail of snow and an open door. I slam it shut — he won’t get the hint but muscle movement whisks away a bit of frustration. Even when he thinks and argues that he’s closed the door, it is often left wide open.

“Oh, I guess I had it wrong. Work is still closed for the holidays,” he mumbles as he peels off the three layers of socks he has taken to wearing lately. It was supposed to be his first day back to work after the Christmas holiday shut-down. He had left to walk at the usual time and here he was, back home, an hour later.

About five years ago, when my husband’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s corresponded with a severe decline in his ability to remain in Sales, his company relocated him to the mushroom-box machine in the factory. Muscle memory proved useful since as a teenager he had pulled the same gadgets and pushed the same gizmos.

“Well, isn’t that just great,” I hear my daughter grunt. “I thought we were going to get a day off from him.”

Here is my dirty truth.

I don’t want to slow down my husband’s Alzheimer’s.

While reading Dr Mehmet Yildiz’s invaluable and science-based article Ten Tips To Slow Down Alzheimer’s one thought kept scrolling through my cranium: I don’t want to slow down my husband’s Alzheimer’s.

Am I simply selfishly insensitive or why don’t I want to intercede? Here is my reality — which may explain why I hope Dementia Pac-Mans my spouse’s brain cells faster than that video game beat out Space Invaders for best selling status.

I am watching my now-very-skinny spouse evolve into a Baby Alive doll who eats non-stop and explosively defecates. But his version is more like a Chatty Cathy with a busted pull string reciting the same basic comments ad nauseam. His ‘repeat cycle’ includes the temperature outside, dog walkers he watches through the window, and how he hasn’t seen the cat for days — when it is curled up under his chin. This lifesize, breathing figurine endlessly stumbles into objects, shatters most items, and smells like a dumpster since he no longer considers personal hygiene a must-do.

Brain changes actually start twenty years before Alzheimer’s symptoms appear.

So sure, if I had a magic pill to stop this disease even fifteen years ago when we didn’t yet know it was snacking on his neurons and building Lego-like walls of amyloid plague, I would have force-fed it to him on a regular basis.

But now? Why would I want to prolong disease-ridden phases in a man we no longer recognize or like? Why elongate stages in which he zones out because he can’t follow conversations or in which he hides his phone in his rubber boot?

Why do I want my family’s messed-up existence to go on any longer than it needs to? Why would I want to spend extra time removing butter he spreads in the cutlery drawer or playing daily hide-and-seek for the spectacles he just crushed under his arse?

It isn’t fun to wake up with blue skin in -25 degree weather because your spouse decided to open all windows “for the cat”. It is in no way amusing to watch a 52-year-old man suddenly confused by microwave buttons, doorknobs, and shoelaces.

Why would I want more days of my daughter sniveling into her hoodie because she wishes she had a Dad who didn’t call her by his sister’s name? Why wouldn’t I agree to less of my son huffing out frustration as he watches his father try for the fifth time to grasp a fork?

I don’t want to slow down my husband’s Alzheimer’s. We just want it done and over with. Let someone else devour vitamins, snuff back bags of carrots, and play Scrabble. We don’t want this to take any longer than it needs to.

And that’s our dirty truth.

©Jennifer J. McDougall 2022