Jay Leno Granted Conservatorship of His Wife Mavis

[padam]

I looked it up.
I know nothing more than this.
I guess it could be Alzheimer's.
But I'm also guessing if it was Alzheimer's they might say it.

"Dementia is a general term for a decline in mental ability severe enough to interfere with daily life, while Alzheimer's is a specific disease. Alzheimer’s is the most common cause of dementia"

IIRC, Alzheimer’s can only be definitively diagnosed via autopsy.

It’s been a few years since I was deep into this stuff, but like so many diseases there are still more questions than good answers.

 

[Sahara]

Initially it was thought that aluminum was a cause, it is in many things like underarm deodorant and leaches from our cooking pots. Aluminum is found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Currently it is thought that aluminum is not a cause but just that the brain of Alzheimer’s patients secretes or deposits aluminum there.
There is a correlation between people who don’t get enough sleep, overindulgence in alcohol, and head injuries.
There are other factors, and no doubt the tin foil hat brigade will weigh in at any moment. I don’t care.
Here’s the thing: if anyone close to you is developing symptoms you need to start getting your **** in order if you haven’t already done so. Alzheimer’s doesn’t sleep and doesn’t rest. Neither do the people with it.
Start getting things like your (their) will together. Power of attorney. Final wishes etc.
The reason you need to start now is that paperwork takes time, in our case well over a year. The patients condition can deteriorate a lot in that time to the point where they cannot make decisions and you can’t legally either if you don’t have the paperwork in place. If they decide that they want to leave and you don’t have guardianship there is nothing that you can do to stop them.
Make sure the will is in place and bulletproof. Nothing tears a family apart worse than siblings fighting over free money. Destroyed my family, destroyed my wife’s family.
Find a place to care for them because in the long run you can’t. We thought we could and we work in the health business. It will exhaust and traumatize your family. You will hear and see things that you should not have to. Ultimately you will end up caring for a fully grown person with the size and strength of an adult and the mind of an infant. This can be very dangerous for you and them. They can be violent and stick a knife in you, or they can turn the stove on and forget about it at 02:00AM while your family is sleeping. They can wander away in the middle of the night in the cold and dark. They can repeatedly call the police on you for kidnapping them. There are many other things that can and will go horribly wrong. They need full time professional help.
Join an Alzheimer’s support group if one is available. It literally saved us.
We went through this. There is so much more. If I can help with advice or support don’t hesitate to PM me. Alzheimer’s is hell for the patient and the family, but there are ways to make it better.

 

[padam]

Sahara nailed it.

 

[Sahara]

Sahara nailed it.

We were arrogant. Because of the family business we thought that we could care for mom in the house. You can’t. It is twenty four hours a day, seven days a week of someone working against you. Professionals work in shifts and go home at the end of the day, get time off and vacations. You don’t if you have a patient in the house. I was lucky enough to live in a small town where everyone knows everyone and I was blessed at the time with an understanding boss. Fortunately the police knew us to not be kidnappers.
Simply put: you end up looking after a stranger who will say and do horrible things that can possibly kill you. Or them. Certainly kill your spirit. Destroy your good memories.
Get professional help sooner then later.

 

[padam]

We were arrogant. Because of the family business we thought that we could care for mom in the house. You can’t. It is twenty four hours a day, seven days a week of someone working against you. Professionals work in shifts and go home at the end of the day, get time off and vacations. You don’t if you have a patient in the house. I was lucky enough to live in a small town where everyone knows everyone and I was blessed at the time with an understanding boss. Fortunately the police knew us to not be kidnappers.
Simply put: you end up looking after a stranger who will say and do horrible things that can possibly kill you. Or them. Certainly kill your spirit. Destroy your good memories.
Get professional help sooner then later.

This is why I think assisted living is a good thing. Well maybe not good, but the lessor of 2 evils.
My dad was miserable in assisted living, but I knew he would have been miserable wherever he was.

 

[Hey-O]

Initially it was thought that aluminum was a cause, it is in many things like underarm deodorant and leaches from our cooking pots. Aluminum is found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Currently it is thought that aluminum is not a cause but just that the brain of Alzheimer’s patients secretes or deposits aluminum there.
There is a correlation between people who don’t get enough sleep, overindulgence in alcohol, and head injuries.
There are other factors, and no doubt the tin foil hat brigade will weigh in at any moment. I don’t care.
Here’s the thing: if anyone close to you is developing symptoms you need to start getting your **** in order if you haven’t already done so. Alzheimer’s doesn’t sleep and doesn’t rest. Neither do the people with it.
Start getting things like your (their) will together. Power of attorney. Final wishes etc.
The reason you need to start now is that paperwork takes time, in our case well over a year. The patients condition can deteriorate a lot in that time to the point where they cannot make decisions and you can’t legally either if you don’t have the paperwork in place. If they decide that they want to leave and you don’t have guardianship there is nothing that you can do to stop them.
Make sure the will is in place and bulletproof. Nothing tears a family apart worse than siblings fighting over free money. Destroyed my family, destroyed my wife’s family.
Find a place to care for them because in the long run you can’t. We thought we could and we work in the health business. It will exhaust and traumatize your family. You will hear and see things that you should not have to. Ultimately you will end up caring for a fully grown person with the size and strength of an adult and the mind of an infant. This can be very dangerous for you and them. They can be violent, or they can turn the stove on and forget about it at 02:00AM while your family is sleeping. They can wander away in the middle of the night in the cold and dark. They can repeatedly call the police on you for kidnapping them. There are many other things that can and will go horribly wrong. They need full time professional help.
Join an Alzheimer’s support group if one is available. It literally saved us.
We went through this. There is so much more. If I can help with advice or support don’t hesitate to PM me. Alzheimer’s is hell for the patient and the family, but there are ways to make it better.

X2! Well said!
.

 

[moparedtn]

We were arrogant. Because of the family business we thought that we could care for mom in the house. You can’t. It is twenty four hours a day, seven days a week of someone working against you. Professionals work in shifts and go home at the end of the day, get time off and vacations. You don’t if you have a patient in the house. I was lucky enough to live in a small town where everyone knows everyone and I was blessed at the time with an understanding boss. Fortunately the police knew us to not be kidnappers.
Simply put: you end up looking after a stranger who will say and do horrible things that can possibly kill you. Or them. Certainly kill your spirit. Destroy your good memories.
Get professional help sooner then later.

All I can say is "thank you" and "God Bless y'all".
Those of us who have been there know you speak truth to gospel.

 

[Sahara]

All I can say is "thank you" and "God Bless y'all".
Those of us who have been there know you speak truth to gospel.

Thank you Ed, and it’s great to hear from you. I frequently wonder how you are doing.
I try to spread the dementia gospel (as well as the real one) as much as I can because so many people think it’s a simple thing to just look after an afflicted parent. How hard can it be, Mom is so sweet. Right?
The problem is that after a while you come to realize that the person you are looking after is not the parent that you knew. Once we got my Mom into the facility we realized that as bad as we had it looking after her, we could have had it much worse. One of the other residents was a big man. Like wrestler or football player big. If he wanted to get violent it could go very bad. He was a former doctor.
My Mom was less then a hundred pounds, five feet tall. It was a handful just looking after her. One time just before Christmas she got out. Minus twenty something, two feet of snow. For over an hour we could not locate her. Just as it was getting dark I spotted her by the high school. Fifteen more minutes and I wouldn’t have seen her.
Because they have no concept of time they can wake up at any time and want to go somewhere or do something. Like phone the police on you. Or mess with the boiler. Or stove. Or hot water heater. When my Mom was cold she built a wood fire in an opening of an oil furnace. She would phone random phone numbers, trying to get rescued from us. Would try to walk back to her home, a trip of around 1500 miles. Would attempt to get strangers to give her a ride there.
Two of my brothers attempted to take advantage of her; one frequently for money, the other for her house. Con men also swindled her.
There was so much more. This is a terrible, terrible disease.

 

[moparedtn]

Thank you Ed, and it’s great to hear from you. I frequently wonder how you are doing.
I try to spread the dementia gospel (as well as the real one) as much as I can because so many people think it’s a simple thing to just look after an afflicted parent. How hard can it be, Mom is so sweet. Right?
The problem is that after a while you come to realize that the person you are looking after is not the parent that you knew. Once we got my Mom into the facility we realized that as bad as we had it looking after her, we could have had it much worse. One of the other residents was a big man. Like wrestler or football player big. If he wanted to get violent it could go very bad. He was a former doctor.
My Mom was less then a hundred pounds, five feet tall. It was a handful just looking after her. One time just before Christmas she got out. Minus twenty something, two feet of snow. For over an hour we could not locate her. Just as it was getting dark I spotted her by the high school. Fifteen more minutes and I wouldn’t have seen her.
Because they have no concept of time they can wake up at any time and want to go somewhere or do something. Like phone the police on you. Or mess with the boiler. Or stove. Or hot water heater. When my Mom was cold she built a wood fire in an opening of an oil furnace. She would phone random phone numbers, trying to get rescued from us. Would try to walk back to her home, a trip of around 1500 miles. Would attempt to get strangers to give her a ride there.
Two of my brothers attempted to take advantage of her; one frequently for money, the other for her house. Con men also swindled her.
There was so much more. This is a terrible, terrible disease.

Eh, right on schedule here I reckon. Can't complain since it was all predicted medically by those who'd know...
New gig pays well but is absolutely illogical to deal with; Fred is going in next week to swap out the ornery
RAM clutch so he'll drive nicer; wife is still here, although sometimes I wonder if it'll get to be too much for her
someday (and I couldn't fault her if it did).
Y'all doing all right up there?

 

[Sahara]

We are good but I’d be lying if I said that we weren’t messed up by the fires.
Been in Mexico for a month and leaving for home on Saturday. The snow is already gone (almost a month early!) and they are already saying because there is no snow and thus no water that we WILL be having another bad fire year. Apparently on our drive home we will be passing through the first forest fires of the year when there should still be a few feet of snow on the ground.
Looking forward to seeing our cats and big goofy dog.

 

[moparedtn]

We are good but I’d be lying if I said that we weren’t messed up by the fires.
Been in Mexico for a month and leaving for home on Saturday. The snow is already gone (almost a month early!) and they are already saying because there is no snow and thus no water that we WILL be having another bad fire year. Apparently on our drive home we will be passing through the first forest fires of the year when there should still be a few feet of snow on the ground.
Looking forward to seeing our cats and big goofy dog.

It's weird how all of these monster storms are missing you folks over that way - they sure aren't missing your
neighbors to the east, that's for sure. Whatever that phenomena out in the Pacific is that's been generating
all of these monsters (El something) needs to calm the hell down - we've had plenty, thanks.
Hoping to share it with y'all soon!

 

[F4R/T]

Sahara your literally spot on, I’m living it with my dad and he was a stroke victim on top of it and then mom had one last year...

 

[Sahara]

Sahara your literally spot on, I’m living it with my dad and he was a stroke victim on top of it and then mom had one last year...

Thank you for that.
I’m sorry about your dad. We learned a lot, and learned a lot the hard way. There is so much more that I didn’t and can’t relate on a semi public site.
Hopefully my advice helps and saves someone some of the strain and heartbreak that we went through. It was my mom and I would do it again but I wish I knew then what I know now.
Probably the single biggest asset that we had was the Alzheimer’s support group. Without that base of knowledge and support it would have been much, much worse.
My mom lasted longer than most, probably because she was so physically fit. She had the first noticeable symptoms for probably two years living on her own. As she got more erratic it became obvious that she couldn’t live on her own. So we literally had to kidnap her and spirit her away to our house in the arctic. She was with us for three years. It wasn’t all bad, but it is literally a grind, relentlessly wearing you down. My wife and then adolescent daughter were real gems. After three years we again kidnapped her and moved her to a truly amazing facility in Yellowknife. This place was phenomenal, laid out like a Disney resort. I would have gladly moved in. Cost to us was CAN$800. Thanks to my mom’s brilliant investing and saving her monthly income was CAN$3300 per month, so she actually MADE money in care.
She lived in there for seven years. The average lifespan of a dementia patient is three to five years, start to finish.
Her brilliant investing is what ultimately ruined her family. My mom was very smart; not only as an investor but personally. She made an end of life plan, a bullet proof will, and placed my sister as executor. I had legal guardianship of her while she was alive. She had a few hundred thousand in the bank. As she became more mentally diminished both of my brothers went after her assets. My younger brother for cash, my older brother for her house and bank account . My sister held firm to the will, as she was supposed to do. It got very, very ugly as both of them wanted me as an ally against my sister, which I refused. As a result I have not spoken to or heard from my younger brother since, and when my older brother was dying of cancer I had to tell him to never contact me again. A tough thing to say.
Dementia, Alzheimer’s, whatever label people want to call it, it doesn’t matter. It sucks. And more and more people are facing the same struggle that we faced. Many of their stories are remarkably similar to mine, in particular siblings going after free money.