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Alzheimers death

Reducing us to paranoid and fearsome remnants of our former selves. Leaving us lonely and alone because we cannot recognize our loved ones anymore. Even our lifelong wives or husbands.

Will we end up mumbling endless litanies of cooking recipes all day long? Only interrupted when our mouth is filled with food?

Will we have wandered the halls of a nursing home with no recollection of our former life as an ambassador for the USA?

Will we have tried running away from our home in search of who knows what? Again and again? Gotten lost in the neighborhood we have lived in for 20 plus years?

Will we have taken our clothes of as if we were carefree and three years old? Taking them even off in outside our home in public places?

Will we have lost our use of words after a life of traveling the world as the CEO of a multinational corporation for decades?

Will our bodies have stiffened up making it hard to shower, dress, walk and eat? Even though we used to run marathons?

Such scary possibilities. Such challenges for our spouses. For our children. For the loved ones around us.

And all that craziness can take years. And years. Between five to 15 years. Long years for all involved.

Not even the mercy of a quick death. We often finally die from infections of pneumonia. Such a long dark journey into Alzheimers death.

If you are looking for medical information about Alzheimer's Disease, click here.

Some of us contract a rare disease and don't know about its existence for ten to twelve years. It is called Creutzfeldt Jacob Disease or CJD for short.

It effects our bodies just like Alzheimer's does. But instead of a journey over many years into death, it only takes months. We have much less time to get used to its path. Both as loved ones loosing someone as well as the one leaving so soon. Leaving too soon. Way too soon.

And so far no chance for a cure. All we can do is go the distance. Ride the fast train.

Leroy was 6 foot 6 tall, 85 years old, and had these beautiful long slender hands. I loved his hands, above all.

He grew up in Illinois on a farm in harsh poverty. As a teenager he had raised his very own pig. He sold it as soon as he graduated from high school. It was his ticket to get out. To get away. To start a new life.

He became an air force pilot flying bombing missions over Germany in World War II. Made it home without any injuries.

Discovered the world of investments. Of stocks and bonds. Became good at it. Became very good at it. It became his life.

A first wife and two children came and went. A second wife shared his passion and stayed. Till the end.

His Alzheimer's was more noticeable. He kept forgetting details of his life. His heart was also not doing well. It was kind of worn out.

Over the next three months I watched Leroy journey into Alzheimers death. From sleeping still in his own bed next to Judy, his wife, to sleeping in the hospital bed in teh middle of the living room. From eating three meals a day with us at the dining room table to only sipping water.

In his last weeks he would constantly pick at his blanket. Or try to pull his catheter out. So one of the caregivers had the idea to offering him a towel to fold. And to fold it again. And again. And again. He could do that for an hour or so.

He loved to talk investments. Numbers. Formulas. Strategies. Mostly words strung together without rhyme or reason. Nonsense. He could do that too for an hour or so.

When he got restless, reading the Bible to him helped. It calmed him down. It eased his fears. It felt familiar after half a lifetime of following its precepts. He had found the Bible though his second wife Judy.
At night Leroy would mention his feelings of guilt about having dropped so many bombs over Germany as a young man. One night he even said: "I lived a rotten life. I only cared about money". That was the last night he was conscious.

The next day he fell into a coma doing the Cheyne-Stokes breathing. A slow breath in. No breath for 15 to 45 seconds. Another slow breath in. Another 15 to 45 seconds with no breath. And another one.

Leroy spent a a few hours breathing like that.

His face changed. Became more mask like. His mouth open. His eyes closed. His hands at rest. Finally at rest. (That is when I took the picture of his hands above).

Finally at around three in the afternoon his breathing just stopped. We nearly missed his last breath.

Leroy had died.

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