A couple of yeas ago I read the remarkable book, "Still Alice." Written from the view of a Harvard professor who has early onset Alzheimer's, it chronicled a remarkable journey. But it was fiction.
Now, I've privileged to read along with many others, the words of Jim McWhinnie who, while he can, is chronicling his own journey. I don't know Jim well but he's writing his journal on Facebook for all to see. He's a retried United Methodist minister who is still accepting invitations to preach from time to time.
My husband, Ken, suffered from dementia. He, like the vast majority of folks with this condition, worked hard to hide it. This makes care giving and other relationships most difficult.
Jim McWhinnie may be doing his most important and brave work by telling us how it is - in real time. He's certainly helping me to continue to heal from old wounds. Following is his journal entry for today. Jim's spending a few days on his boat.
MY ALZHEIMER'S JOURNAL....July 16, 2014
Typically... folks with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia live with a broadening feeling of insecurity. We find comfort in the well-known routine. Change becomes an act demanding very intentional initiative but eventually and even more so, becomes also an act of personal courage.
They say with male patients this challenge tends to lead to more and more passive behavior - I suppose, not wanting to expose a lack of strength or fortitude. Men - women, too, but in a different way - fear being exposed as vulnerable. It is a reality of our human frailty that needs compassionate understanding.
Yet, here on the water...in my movable feast know as the Saint Brendan, the "spirit of adventure" seems to enable me to draw upon a greater strength. Maybe all of life needs that same sense of adventure...an act of love and daring that forces us to draw upon a Greater Strength.
I miss my wife, of course, but she is off doing her own loves while I do my Walter Mitty thing. As a caregiver, she needs and will need...these getaway times. I owe her that time to recover ...and my love for her does not want my weakened condition to weaken her own. I must remember this in the months and years ahead...she needs her time away...both for her sake and for mine. I will make a large, beautiful, calligraphy poster with those very words and hand it on the wall beside my chair.
jim Mcwhinnie
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