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Passage Into Paradise - A Caregiver's Journey - PART TWO

© Karen Largent

Welcome to Suite101.com and the Alzheimer's Disease topic. Last month I began to present to you the story of Dorothy Womack and her mother, to whom she gave care for many years.

This month we continue our journey with Dorothy, day by day, week by week, as she cared for her mother, herself, her family. This month's article covers the entire year of 1994. This is a moving story, sometimes upsetting, occasionally disturbing, by most of all TRUE. Dorothy has shared with us her innermost thoughts and feelings as a caregiver, a daughter, a person.

Please feel free to leave comments at the end of this article so that we may engage in a meaningful discussion of the difficulties faced by caregivers.

As always, I thank you for your continued support of this topic.

A Caregiver's Journey - Passage Into Paradise - Part Two

by Dorothy Womack

February 1994

During the first 6 weeks of 1994, Mom had absolutely no incidents and appeared to be as normal and alert as she was before the strokes and the walk through hell began. But on February 14, 1994 after surviving the ice storm and no power for days, the worst symptoms struck. Only one other incident in the Fall had been similarly bad - She would sit up with a blank stare to her face and projectively throw up, sometimes for 1 ½ hours! I was frantic, but the nurse on call said there was nothing she could do, and that the doctor couldn't even see her for at least 2 days even if she were willing to be hospitalized! Once again, I learned the cruelty of mankind. If it doesn't touch you personally, then don't get involved. It destroyed my faith in the medical system.

During the previous summer when I was having trouble coping with all the newness of the disease, I remember kicking the fence and saying I felt people expected me to be made of steel - unbending, unfeeling, cold, strong. I got so bad that my husband often worried about my sanity. We wanted to make Mom's "passage" easier, but it is so instinctive when faced with the impending death of a loved one, to call them back to life, to beg God for more time. It is just too hard to stand by and watch them die in front of you. Then, when they do return, you realize that more and more of their personality and memory is gone - and then you blame God for not taking them out of their suffering! He tries - I pull Mom back - He tries again. In the meantime, my faith fails me and bitterness overwhelms me. Each person I dare to ask says we don't know God's timetable or His reasons, just cope with whatever the day brings. Then I am left to wonder just why it is that some people slip away during their sleep, or die instantly in car wrecks - while others, like Mom, endure months and months of bizarre experiences (which she doesn't remember). I am left to bear the trauma in my memory for what is left of my own life. I find no joy in living, no hope for my own future, no goals worth pursuing, no reality in life itself. I feel as though I am already dead and in a 1200' coffin (the size of this house), where no one sees, no one cares, forgotten, used up. Life has gone on without me.

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