I am so glad your staying.We all need

Hi Barb,

I am not going to go.   I was just afraid that all my tales about late stage
issues were getting to be a turnoff to people and I realized I was VERY
selfishly thinking of only myself and my own issues.

When I had to put Ida in the nursing home (almost two weeks ago) I admit I
was totally caught up in my own scenario.   This is a public newsgroup and
it is free to anyone to post about anything at all related to alzheimers.
I never considered that it could be disgusting to read, to others.

I felt maybe I was "hogging the bandwidth" or something with all MY stories
about what we were going through and what we were encountering without
considering that there were probably people out there who saw this as a
turnoff.

I thought maybe I should try to keep it a little more general so as not to
turn people off or scare them away.   This newsgroup goes quiet enough from
time to time, and it will lose its usefulness if less people post here or go
off to form a separate group.

EVERY stage of this illness has its specific set of problems, but the truth
is that the stages do overlap one another as has been pointed out.    When
and where does one draw the line between one stage and another?   I found
that some of the problems of early stage are still around in late stage.
That some of the worst problems of early stage actually almost DISAPPEARED
in late stage!

I can't see clearly where a line between early and late stage could or would
be drawn, as the overlapping confuses the issue.   Then if another newsgroup
for early stage WAS formed, and ones loved one progressed, what would we do?
Would we tell them that their loved one is no longer in "early stage" and
they have to go to another newsgroup now?   That they would have to deal
with a whole new set of posters whom they maybe didn't even know?

I found this newsgroup a help from way back PRE-DIAGNOSIS to right now when
Ida is in later stages.   I never felt put off by the people who posted of
the most horrible of late stage issues, or by people who came in just
inquiring how to determine if their loved one's funny or eccentric behaviors
were anything to be worried about.

Could there be issues of DENIAL going on?   Probably.  We went through it
too.  Maybe as our loved ones go through stages of Alzheimers, we also go
through stages of Alzheimer awareness or acceptance.

Right now I am in a certain kind of denial myself.   When I see people who
are exhibiting bizarre behaviors in the nursing home and poor Ida sitting
there daintily in her chair, still ladylike, being "good" it just breaks my
heart and I think to myself that maybe she will never get like those others
who are in some sort of extreme mental state.

Speaking of Ida..... To the VERY last day she lived in my house, when I gave
her her meals, or a bath, she THANKED me every time.   When she spoke very
little, that was one thing she always did.

That alone speaks volumes for a person who is in later stage alzheimers
disease who always manages to muster up a "Thank You" for a bath or a meal.
It also says why we were OK with keeping her here at home for as long as we
did and why we feel so bad about having had to place her now.

But it had to be done and she is honestly and truly better off, since she is
getting very good care.