hi everyone
i think instead its more like “the instant goodbye that you missed” because by the time you notice your loved one is having difficulties with thinking, they have already changed some and while they still look like your loved one, they keep changing farther and farther away from who they were.
anyone else think this way?
We used to be able to talk all night long.
Then the window of topics we were able to talk about started very gradually getting smaller and smaller.
That started a few years before the vascular dementia diagnosis.
Now there's still moments of clarity.
So for me this is having my best friend slowly slip away.
And with a 5 year average lifespan after that diagnosis,
it is essentially a long goodbye.
With my aunt, sadly I don't think anyone was checking on her. I admit I did not visit but I would call her frequently. She sounded sharp as a tack over the phone. However, she kept getting into car accidents and other things my other cousin picked up on.
I was shocked to hear. I went to visit aunt and was surprised at the sight of her. I mean, talking to her over the phone, she sounded great and she was on top of the news and other aspects of the world. However, when I went to see her, I couldn't believe who I was looking at. She was emaciated! Then the temper tantrums and crying and screaming. I felt awful that she got this way and none of us were visiting to see there was a problem. We all suspected it happened after her last living sibling passed. She seemed to have went quickly then.
I think if we check on each other, while we can't cure it, we can probably slow it down with medication. What's sad is my aunt doesn't believe she has a problem and will not get herself checked out.