Life With Sharyn: A Positive Approach to Alzheimer's

By Michael Hunter

I truly believe, and have been told by many, that the story of my journey with my wife of 52 years through Alzheimer’s is a beautiful one. In a world filled with only the negatives about this disease, I have worked to ensure that our lives are full of only the positives. My life with Sharyn is a great one, and I’d like to share it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Hunter
• Release date: Oct 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9780578400280

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Editorial Director: Hannah Hubner

Cover Designer: Kelia West

Composition & Production: Power On Marketing, LLC

© 2018 by Michael Hunter

All Rights Reserved.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Our Story

I truly believe, and have been told by many, that the story of my journey with my wife of 52 years through Alzheimer’s is a beautiful one. In a world filled with only the negatives about this disease, I have worked to ensure that our lives are full of only the positives. My life with Sharyn is a great one, and I’d like to share it.

Sharyn and I were born and raised in the Seattle-area, and we were married on August 19th, 1966. I am often asked how we have been together for so long, but it’s easy when you simply enjoy each other’s company. We spent 25 years working together in the insurance business, which allowed us to live in many locations such as Portland, Oregon, Honolulu, Hawaii, and the last 17 years in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1999, we retired and built a home in a gated golf and country club in Florida where we planned to spend our remaining years relaxing, playing golf, and traveling to our most desired destinations. We are lucky to have traveled to all seven continents, 67 countries, and all 50 states while crossing the equator 20 times.

Our idyllic retired lives changed forever in 2006 after Sharyn had a stroke.

I returned home from golfing one day to find Sharyn acting very odd; she was half dressed and her speech was garbled. After quickly getting her dressed, we headed off to the emergency room. I mentioned that she might have had a stroke as we walked through the ER doors, which lead to people working on her faster than I have ever seen in my life. She was on a stretcher with an IV in her arm and whisked away for a MRI before I even had a chance to check her in. The doctors were able to stabilize her, but she was still unaware of who or where she was. She began regaining her mental awareness as the day went on and by morning she was back to normal – at least I thought.

The neurologist from the hospital then wanted to explain his findings on the MRI. He showed me the area of the stroke, which was a white spot in her memory area, but also noticed indications of early onset Alzheimer’s. Her brain mass had already reduced in size by this time. Both her grandmother and aunt had passed away due to the disease, and the neurologist confirmed that it does tend to run in families. The doctor and I had this discussion without Sharyn being present. I then requested that we only talk about Sharyn’s stroke with her and asked that we did not mention her diagnosis as I felt that she had enough to deal with already. I continued this practice with all of her doctors and continue to do so to this day. The only conversations Sharyn and I ever have ever had in regards to this were about her memory problems, and that was the extent of it.

We were lucky that Sharyn showed no signs of ever having a stroke or even Alzheimer’s for several years afterwards. Our luck ran out and trouble started in 2008 while we were on a 65-day cruise to Asia and Australia with our good friends. Sharyn began missing obvious moves and standard strategies in dominoes, one of our favorite games, and I knew something was beginning to affect her memory.

When we returned home from the cruise, I began my Alzheimer’s disease research and found myself faced with what seemed to be overwhelming negativity. Our neurologist was involved in support and education workshops, but I didn’t want to expose Sharyn to that kind of information. Some people who attended these meetings said that they often left feeling worse than when they arrived. Although she was also eligible for some clinical drug trials, I just never found the time to pursue them. I spent several weeks surveying all of our options, but was never comfortable with what was available. I felt that there had to be a better direction to take in dealing with the disease. Although the websites on the topic were informative, they were either centered on selling services like in-home care, nursing homes, and drugs, or medical information which I found to be overcomplicated and confusing. They seemed to be well meaning, but centered on a rather negative narrative with an emphasis on the overwhelming amount of extra care that is required for someone with Alzheimer’s. I quickly found out that the general feeling associated with the disease is overwhelmingly negative, and featured a focus on the fact that there is no cure and that it is terminal. What I needed was information on how to deal with Alzheimer’s on a day-to-day basis, as well as an idea of what the future was going to look like and how to handle it. I wasn’t comfortable with the negative direction that everything seemed to be pointing me in and I quickly realized that I was on my own.

In the last 12 years, we have never talked about her diagnosis because I couldn’t find any logical reason to have the conversation with her. I have never found that having a negative conversation ever ends with a positive outcome.

After asking several of my friends what they thought of my decision not to tell Sharyn, some said that they would want to know. Would you really want to know that you were going to slowly lose your mind and then die? God has placed a veil over our mortality for a reason. If we all knew how and when we were going to die, the world would be in complete chaos. If you knew that you were going to die in 3 years, wouldn’t that take away all of your incentives? Alzheimer’s disease is different from a cancer diagnosis, where they need to know because they need to participate and there is a possible cure. With Alzheimer’s, there is no known cure in sight. There are only pills and an occasional visit to the clinic.

Other than her memory problem, Sharyn is thankfully very healthy. I’ve been extremely fortunate that she is also very sweet, happy, and active. I believe that not telling her about her fate has a lot to do with her positive attitude as I have heard how depressed both patients and caregivers become after having to deal with the disease. Why wouldn’t they be? With the constant brogue of ads for magic potions to enhance your memory flooding the television with scare tactics, I can certainly understand why they would be depressed. When Sharyn sees these ads on TV, she doesn’t realize that they are talking about her and she is able to go on unfazed instead of being emotionally triggered. We laugh every day and have a great time because there is absolutely no depression in our home. At night, when I hear her talking and laughing in her sleep, it tells me that I was right in not telling her.

My positive approach began with accepting the brutal truth that the disease is terminal. After all, every living thing on Earth is technically terminal and there is no cure for any of it; medical science can only extend life. It’s all in God’s hands, so it is best to just relax. We will all pass away from something and Alzheimer’s is just one cause. Accepting this allowed me to spend my time focusing on quality of life instead of length of life and has allowed me to enjoy my wife.

My obligation to Sharyn is to make sure that she has the best medicine available and to make her life as pleasant as possible. 52 years ago, as I stood on an alter in front of God, her family, my family, and our friends, I pledged to keep her for better or worse, in sickness and health. When