Jum & Muz: I Forget - a Caregivers View of Alzheimers

By Mary Ellen Connelly

There are many things we cannot understand; fathomless questions that confront and confuse us, but the most baffling is the human mind. With that thought, I have tried to show my observations, interpretations and notes.
I hope this book will remind us what a kind, sweet, considerate and compassionate person Jim was. Thank you to my family for being the thoughtful, caring people you are. And to Jims friends, a special thank you. I could not have survived without your help and inspiration. His life was cut short much too soon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514484999

Mary Ellen Connelly

Mary Ellen was born in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. Her family moved to Montana when her father, a Section Foreman on the Great Northern Railroad, was transferred. She attended local schools and graduated from Whitefish High School. Mary Ellen has been an activist. She was elected president and district president of the Whitefish Woman’s Club, an international service organization. She completed a series of courses and worked as a Real Estate Appraiser before her election to the Montana House of Representatives in 1982. She served five terms on the powerful Appropriations and Budget Committee and chair of the Long-range Planning Subcommittee. Appointed to the Western Regional Economic Council, as the Montana representative, because of the district bordering Canada. Charged with economic development and regional oversight, the members were Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Alberta, Camada/. Mary Ellen also served on the Montana drug and alcohol abuse council. Asked to chair the United Way of the county, she raised the most substantial amount ever donated. She was selected “Woman of the Year” for Flathead County and received various other honors. Mary Ellen currently lives on an acre and a half on the Calaveras River in California.

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JUM & MUZ

I Forget - A Caregivers

View of Alzheimers

Mary Ellen Connelly

Copyright © 2016 by Mary Ellen Connelly.

Cover Photo by: Mary Ellen Connelly

ISBN:       Softcover       978-1-5144-8500-2

       eBook       978-1-5144-8499-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/05/2016

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Carlotta

Mary

Nellie

Hugh

Remembering Jum

Information and Suggestions

Epilogue

To James (Jum)

There are many things we cannot understand; fathomless questions that confront and confuse us, but the most baffling is the human mind. With that thought, I have tried to show my observations, interpretations and notes.

I hope this book will remind us what a kind, sweet, considerate and compassionate person Jim was. Thank you to my family for being the thoughtful, caring people you are. And to Jim’s friends, a special thank you. I could not have survived without your help and inspiration. His life was cut short much too soon.

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(Jum)

OLD IRISH BLESSING

May the wings - Of the butterfly kiss the sun

And find a shoulder to light upon - to bring luck,

love and happiness,

Today - Tomorrow - and Beyond.

JUM & MUZ I FORGET - A CARE GIVERS VIEW OF ALZHEIMERS

Alzheimers has been called the cruel disease. This is true. It sneaks into the brain and steals the dignity, memory and sense of self of the person affected. It begins with a small insidious loss of memory, maybe misplacing keys. Wondering, why did I go into a particular room? What was the reason to enter that room, what did I need, what did I come here for. Unease and frustration is an early sign. At first, maybe it’s just the thought that this is a (so-called) senior moment. Everybody has those. It’s very scary to feel like your memory is slipping and you can’t think as clearly as you once did. This is the story of my husband, James and his gradual descent into the oblivion and the unforgiving grip of Alzheimers and the devastation it caused to our family, but especially to him. We lived it.

My husband was a thoughtful, brilliant man. He had a great sense of humor and enjoyed a good joke and loved to tell stories to make people laugh. He had an unbelievable store of limericks, I’m sure, some he made up himself. Jim was a people person in the best sense of the word. His thoughtfulness was apparent, especially with children and dogs. He enjoyed a game of solitaire that he invented, because he said the regular game was boring. He read everything and anything. He could quote poetry or a line from a book to cover any situation. His mental acuity was truly outstanding. But over the course of about twenty years his mind gradually retreated behind a cloud of panic, frustration, uncertainty and debilitating worry.

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(Jum – playing solitaire)

I think the most devastating part of dealing with someone suffering with Alzheimers - is not knowing - what will happen next and when. The gradual change in personality that flashes back and forth. The bewilderment of the person affected is, I think the most heart-breaking part of the disease. You feel such sympathy but there is really nothing you can do except try to cope each day. The progression of the disease is insidious and the sense of isolation and loneliness is sometimes overwhelming. As a care-giver it’s a burden you carry alone.

A friend once asked me how I stayed in a marriage with such a problem. I guess my first thought was shock that someone could think that way. If you care about someone you don’t abandon them if the going gets rough. I thought about how, each day, as the disease progressed there was another reminder of the loss of our memories together, our shared memories. I read somewhere that Alzheimers has been called The Long Goodbye. That is an apt statement of fact.

The isolation can be overwhelming if you let it. You need to have a support system. I didn’t realize this at first and I tried to handle the problems and incidents alone. I didn’t ask for help. My children were scattered to other places and I don’t think I told them early on and if they didn’t see him often they probably wouldn’t notice the changes. But in the later stage they were helpful.

I didn’t know what was happening for quite a few years and I didn’t investigate options until much later as the disease was further along. I hadn’t been familiar with Alzheimers and finally did some research but not until it became obvious that something was wrong. The symptoms quite often go unnoticed until the disease has advanced significantly.

The changes were minuscule at first and were few and far between. Because the episodes were so irregular and sometimes months would pass I didn’t always notice a change in behavior or activity. I thought he was tired, and attributed it to the long hours on a freight train. He was a locomotive engineer on the Great Northern Railroad. He was absentminded occasionally but that wasn’t anything to worry about. We all have those moments, you see. The occasional flashes of anger were easily understood. But, he was not an angry person so I speculated about what had upset him and how I could fix it. I was successful some of the time.

I think it’s necessary to present some background of Jim and our family to better understand the circumstances of dealing with the effects of Alzheimers. I was twelve when my parents were divorced. My bother was the oldest and already married and three older sisters stayed with Dad.

My mother remarried and along with my two youngest sisters, we moved to the Big Mountain in Montana on the turnoff toward the Whitefish Lookout. It was a log cabin, very rudimentary with one big room and a loft, located on 160 acres, part of the original homestead.

Without electricity we used kerosene lanterns for lights. We didn’t have running water but there was a spring about 50 feet from the house. My step-dad installed a hand pump and a barrel to catch the water so it wasn’t as inconvenient as it sounds. However we did have to heat water for dishes or washing clothes which was a pain. My mother groused about the three of us not helping enough, but we were kids and had to be reminded.

Jim was born in Whitefish in 1926 and grew up on the lake side of town. He had three older sisters, Shirley and the twins. He loved fishing and during the depression he sometimes supplied dinner for the family because his father (Jay) was out of work. With Whitefish beginning to recover from the depression his father was hired back as a Locomotive Engineer on the Great Northern Railroad. In 1938 when the Lakeside school burned to the ground Great Northern officials provided a railroad car as a classroom while a new school was under construction.

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(classroom on wheels – 1938)

(Jim – right side row - 3rd up boy with blond hair, white shirt)

A group of Lakeside boys had a running feud with the town kids. He told me they made slingshots out of old rubber tires and had wars shooting rocks at each other. It’s amazing that no-one was seriously injured. An older boy lived across the street. Hugh was the unofficial leader of Jim and the boys (Rex, Larry and Harold) and he looked out for them and kept them out of trouble. Jim was an excellent student, but he seldom talked about his school years. He was awarded the Degree of Merit from the National Forensics League in 1942. Following graduation from High School Jim immediately joined the Navy. Boot camp training was at Farragut, a base near the small town of Sandpoint, Idaho.

Returning to Whitefish following discharge from the Navy Jim attended the University at Missoula on the GI Bill. He changed his major several times. He was struggling to make up his mind about what he wanted to do and thought teaching might be of interest. He thought he was wasting his time until he could decide, so he didn’t go back after the second year.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, I first encountered Jim when my sisters and I walked down a back road. The road down the mountain was an old wagon trail, mostly ruts and rocks. We went a few times a week to get milk from a dairy farmer, a mile or so from our cabin. We took Jinks, our dog, with us because Mom was worried about bears. It was probably a legitimate worry but