Texas Ren Fest

West-Tex : 😂😂😂

Joe :
Catmae :I don't have a ton of experience personally with Alzheimer's, but my eldest aunt suffers from it, and her short and long term memory is lost. Her siblings (one of whom is my mom) have had to really work together to understand how she receives information over the years.My aunt doesn't remember anything whatsoever beyond 30 minutes prior, and her siblings have figured out not to "correct" or "clarify" anything (i.e. "No, that's your great granddaughter, remember?"). Doing so has routinely caused her to get really defensive/agitated, as if we're correcting her like a child and/or making her feel "stupid." Instead, they just acknowledge her questions and comments and gently redirect the conversation away from difficult situations like this. They don't outwardly lie to her...moreso just navigate their ways through specifics of conversations that she won't remember anyway.It's a miserable existence. She loves to get mail. I send her a greeting card periodically with a nice note for her that she proudly shares with her nursing home mates, even though she has zero idea who I am. I (as well as my mom/uncles/aunts/cousins, etc.) have already grieved who she once was. 😥I feel for everyone who has to watch this kind of progression of a terrible disease. It's nothing short of feeling absolute helplessness and heartbreak.

brightlights : Yeah, it's getting to the point where I'm going to start redirecting the conversation. That last phone call really threw me for a loop. We have conversations where he'll ask where my kids live, like he does every time we talk. I tell him the youngest lives in Tomball and he asks me where that is, how far away, etc. The last time we talked about it, he asked me how to get there, and then said never mind and made a funny quip about it and laughed. Later in the conversation, we talked about it again. He made the exact same funny quip and laughed again, like it was the first time he'd come up with the funny comment. He has 6 college degrees in several different fields and was a borderline "genius". At this point in time, he recognizes the irony of the situation.

brightlights :

Joe: one thing my family learned when dealing with my mom with Alzheimer's, you have to live in their reality. You don't lie. In 5 minutes they will move on to something else. It was hard for me at first. But what good does it do them to hear the family member died years ago. Then they have to live through that sad memory again. They get upset, that's not good for anyone. It is cruel that anyone has to go through that.

He's been found dead in his home. www.khou.com/article /news/local/texas/te xas-renaissance-fest ival-founder-fo

MrsT : Oh my gosh!

eighteen : I think so too.

eighteen : That's the first thing that came to mind.