Because I have been labeled with this disease. . .Sylvia has been given the label “care giver”. While this is a new part of our relationship, it is truly only a part of it. Being a “care giver” is not the whole of our relationship, nor the foremost.
A View From Within, Thaddeus Raushi, p 84
A friend of mine with early Alzheimer’s has said to me that one of the important issues is his life with Alzheimer’s is the feeling of becoming a burden to his wife. Who is now taking on those roles considered care-taking roles. I know what he is talking about. I share this feeling as well. This feeling, which runs deep, is recognition of the increasing responsibilities being placed on your loved one by you and by this disease. It is the realization that the road ahead most likely will be more rugged for the other person than for your own self
A View From Within, Thaddeus Raushi, p 85
Caregiving—the new dimension—an immersion that happened so gradually that I needed to remind myself periodically to step back and appreciate how much energy it was taking. It was like falling into a fast-flowing river; I was so busy trying to negotiate the swirling, rapid currents, I would forget the magnitude of what we were dealing with.
Ten Thousand Joys & Ten Thousand Sorrows, Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle, p. 74
All this was like a delicate dance. Increasingly, I felt the challenge of this role: wanting to honor his independence, protect his dignity, and keep our lives as so-called normal as possible. All the while, the ground was shifting under him and therefore under me as well.
Ten Thousand Joys & Ten Thousand Sorrows, Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle, p.76
The strains of caregiving were subterranean, sometimes invisible even to me. ....“You’ve changed,” Hob said to me one day. “You order me around all the time and get that edge on your voice.”
Ten Thousand Joys & Ten Thousand Sorrows, Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle, p.164