I have been reading everyone's posts and I find myself wishing I had seen some of the advice earlier. My paternal grandmother passed away from Alzheimer's back in the 90's and she had been living in the nursing home for about three years prior. She had shown no signs of the disease up until my dad (who spent 10 years or more driving down from Lincoln to Auburn - 80 miles at least 1-2 times a month after my grandfather passed) felt she was no longer physically capable of taking of herself due to other medical issues. Once she moved, she was ok for a year or so but then Alzheimer's kicked in and the last six months of her life she refused to eat and basically starved herself to death.
After that, my parents wrote detailed living wills outlining what their wishes were which saved much angst amongst us kids. Their funerals were planned, payed for, and in the last couple years before dad passed he had all of us kids come together and choose family heirlooms we particularly wanted. Mom was not in the best of health and my sister who lived with them was (and still is) in a similar boat. The assumption was that she would probably be the first to go. We were so wrong. Dad died in 2011 from acute leukemia (9 months after initial diagnosis), then mom went to assisted living and my sister now lives with me. Mom passed in Feb 2020 from "senile degeneration of the brain" and cerebral vascular disease. She also had the beginnings of Alzheimer's but it was not in the final stages, thank God, so she was still pretty aware, just had short term memory loss - mostly in the evenings.
So, while Dad's loss was fairly quick in comparison, it still offered the family time to come to grips a bit and prepare. My husband absolutely hates to talk about death, etc. but I am of the opinion that doing so offers families a chance to genuinely take the time to grieve after a death and not have to put it aside to make all those decisions at the last minute. By the time we were able to finally have the internment of mom's ashes it was seven months after her death and so the initial grief was not so fresh. Still was hard to attend the internment. My only solace is that she and dad are back together again.
Sorry about the rambling. Just some thoughts that came up after reading the posts above. To all those whose family members are suffering from Alzheimer's my thoughts and prayers are with you. Hang tough.
