A Very Vulnerable Share...
On a more serious note I’d like to share and be vulnerable here for a few minutes. It's a long share so feel free to go get yourself a cup of tea and settle in for the read.
For those of you who follow me on IG and FB you may have seen some snippets of what life was like this summer for Grant and I.

This brings me to my beloved Grant. Grant has been dealing with cognitive decline since 2019. But the 2 months we were in the camper he literally went from mild dementia to full blown dementia.

Dementia is not new to me as my mother had it for several years before her passing. But the big difference here is that I was not my mother’s care giver. I did not live with her. And mom was unable to speak to us in any language (French or English). This meant we could not communicate.
With Grant he could speak his English and he had much to say. Grant started to experience “hallucinations”. I use this word gently as I fully know that he was connecting to the Spirit world – when I could not! The Oak Grove was a portal to the “little people” and the leprechauns where mischievous and having a lot of fun with him. Then his ancestors started showing up especially mom and dad. It would not be strange if mom was sleeping with us during the night. I thought wow maybe Grant is getting ready to transition.
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But then something else started to happen, something called “sundowning”. This is where in my words alternate timelines, the veil to the Spirit world was thin and massive confusion was at play. He no longer understood where he was. He often would refer to upstairs and downstairs like we were living in the old house. But I will be honest none of it made sense to me.
And just when you think that isn’t bad enough he would wake up in the middle of the night not understanding or knowing who this naked woman was sleeping in bed with him. It frighten him so much that he got dressed and left the camper in the middle of the night to catch a bus. (okay no buses run through the farm). As I’m recalling these events with you I just want to cry. It was horrible, scary and so disturbing.

What came of all of this was that Grant could no longer process me as one person, so he started to separate me by his emotions. If he was feeling like he needed safety I would be his wife. If he needed comprehension of his mind I would be his therapist or some sort of teacher. If he was feeling unsafe I was literally a man who he felt was sketchy and if he felt he had no control I was the other woman who was bossy and bitchy. Every time I would walk through a door I became someone else. I’d never heard of this with those suffering with dementia. We never had this with mom because well maybe because we could not communicate.
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Grant was aware of the way he was seeing me and open to discuss it. I learned a lot of what was happening with his mind.

My Lessons...

In shamanism we learn to work with the winds of the South (Serpent medicine). This medicine is about shedding your skin all at once. I realized that Grant was definitely giving me the biggest teaching of this. Imagine your identity to your beloved being dissected one piece at a time. I learned a lot about myself as he would freely share with me what he thought of each of these characters. I also acknowledge that I’m very much attached to these pieces of me. Having them slip away one at a time was a revolving death. So many parts of me were dissolving and dying.
Once moved into the new house Grant started to settle down. He was reunited with his belongings and this seem to give him peace and some grounding. I’m happy to announce that in the last week I have consistently been one person – aka wife (sweetie). You have no idea how much of a relief this is to both of us.

Dementia is frightening for both parties. I was in denial at the beginning and used to say this was happening to him (poor him). But if anything I am honest and I call bullshit on that. This happens to both of you as a couple.

Here is what really has come to light for me. Grant's survival is dependent on my care. When "they" don’t know you, your survival is dependent on you. Do you get what I'm saying here? When your loved one does not know you anymore, every part of their needs is on you. Something simple like watching TV is dependent on you because they no longer remember how to operate the remote.
But here is the scary part. When they don't know who you are and don't understand why you are in their house your survival is dependent on YOU. We can't know their minds and what they are capable of. Grant was never aggressive, but none of the less he scared me. I did not feel safe when he was in this state.
This isn’t over for us. I have no idea what is in store. I got an awakening call and a snippet of some of the bad. But as my family taught me at the farm you need to learn to pivot with the weather. Except this isn’t rain or snow we are concerned about it’s about the weather in my beloved’s mind.

My Reasons for Sharing...

I'm not sharing any of this for sentiments of "poor" Carole. I understand at a deep level Grant and I agreed on this at some point. I'm sharing because if you are going through anything similar with a loved one or maybe you yourself is feeling like you are forgetting a lot. Don't do this alone.
I'm so fortunate that I had a handful of friends and family who reached out to help. Simply having my sister and her husband near me meant the world to me. I wasn't alone during this difficult time.
Find a way to have some alone time. Grant was and still is attached to my hip. He reminds me of a 3 year old who does not want to be alone nor wants to do anything alone. I'll be honest I crave alone time. Sometimes I feel I can't breathe.
Try not to loose your cool. This is not easy. As caregivers especially when we are the spouse we get frustrated and loose our shit. Do your best to not do this. It only makes things so much worse.
Go with the flow. In the beginning this is not easily done. But like all things when you get enough practice you get the hang of it.
Explore medications. Yup this was difficult for me and for Grant because we are not fans of pharmaceuticals but desperate times requires desperate solutions and with the hope they are temporary.
Think ahead what do you want the outcome to look like. As our Doctor said in time things will only get worse. Now not sure if I'm a believer on this, but the important thing is does your loved one believe this? We know a thought becomes a thing.
You need to ask the hard questions now while they can still answer for themselves. Do they want to end up in a nursing home completely sedated on meds. Is this the life they wish for themselves and for you to go through. What are the alternatives? MAID??
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So much to consider.
So much to learn.
So much to experience.
This fight is not over, but I can't do it alone. I need my village
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Aho,
Loving you,
Carole

In my shamanic teachings when you work with the winds of the South (Serpent) medicine you learn to shed your skin all at once.   This means that you shed your labels what you believe you are through the lens of your ego.

We can intellectually understand this but it isn't until you are completely undone that you really know what this medicine is.

In the past 3 weeks I have been playing a part of multi-personalities for my beloved.  He suffers from dementia and although this expresses itself differently for all those who  live with it, my beloved has a fragmented memory with role association along with emotional memory versus factual memory.  All to say that he sees me as 4 to 7 different women. 

I am seen and spoken to as the "therapist", "lover", "Carole - the wife", "sweetie" , "the old woman" and "the other lady".  It breaks my heart to no longer just be seen and experienced as his wife.  On the one hand being a "wife" is complex.  We truly do wear all these hats from one moment to another.  I would venture to say that I'm probably his mother somewhere in there too.

This experience has really unraveled me.  I never asked to be dissected.  I am made up of many moving parts and all those parts make up the one entity...until now.

This is the true medicine of the Serpent.  I am being asked to shed parts of me in the present moment he is "perceiving" me.  I am being asked to simply be one aspect.  This is no easy task and not one I wish on anyone.  It feels like day by day HIS beloved is being segregated, split, torn apart and soon there will be no identity left.  The Carole, the love of his life, his soul mate will have shed every label to nothingness.

I ask myself how do I navigate all of this?
Am I ready to shed all these labels? 
o I want to become nothing? 
Who am I without these labels? 

I am being stripped without request and I wonder what lies under the nakedness of this undoing?

Aho,
​Carole

When I heard those words they cut me like a knife.  The very vulnerable part of me that was expressing my concerns about my beloved's failing memory was diminished in one sentence: "He's always been forgetful!"

My immediate reaction was to slash out, rebel, plead my case, but I realized that was a waste of effort.  How would she know?  She spends a few days every five years with  him. 

How would she know?

Waiting and watching someone slip into the abyss of cognitive decline is not an experience I wish upon anyone.  And yet there it is for him and for me.

Those words were spoken a number of years ago and as his primary caregiver there isn't a whole lot of time to reflect for we are busy making decisions for two.  However, recently I sat with it, those words.  I finally made some sense out of them.

My beloved has always been forgetful if I am to be honest.  But my interpretation of that was he did not remember certain things because they held no importance to him.  He dismissed them. I always interpreted those instances as it wasn't worth the space in his head.  Move on!

Over the last decade a different kind of forgetfulness started to happen.  You know your birthday, anniversaries, special occasions, vacations once enjoyed, names of friends, places you've frequented often, streets, land marks, places, things.  We could fluff those ALL off as aging--sure for awhile.

Now it's evolved.  Now it's as if this world the one we've always known together is dissolving like salt in warm water.

On his behalf there is an awareness of it happening, but there is nothing for him to grab on to.  Nothing he can root down on.  He is the leaf and I am the branch.  His world revolves around me holding him to the one we share together.   This stage is tender, vulnerable and very very delicate.

I'm afraid it won't be long now. 
He (the leaf) will let go of the branch (me).

​Aho

PS I'm blogging about the journey of cognitive decline with my husband, Grant.  This serves 2 purposes: One it heals me to share the other it heals you to witness.

It starts with a simple ask; "What time is it?"

With all the technology of this day no one should need to ask this question really!  It is readily at our disposal.  But there it is like an elephant in the room.  This question, this illusion of this thing we call time.

As time goes by the question multiplies.  It leaves his lips so often sometimes if I count it's 7 times within an hour.  "What time is it?"  Of course the answer is always without fail different.  But the question, it never changes.

Then one day a new question emerges; "What day is it?"  Together the 2 questions circle around in a dance sometimes in a waltz, sometimes in a solo performance.  Then a third question leaves his lips..."What month is it?"

As a culture obsessed with time we base all of our actions around this phenomenon.   Where would we be without time?

I feel into these questions daily from my beloved.  Some days I am happy to answer his simple ask.  Other days the question scratches my skin like sand paper.  It feels abrasive to my being. 

Where does the mind go when it can no longer be sequestered by the illusion of time.
One day he will no longer ask the questions:
"What time is it?"
"What day of the week is it?"
"What month are we in?"

The importance he gives time will no longer exist.  It will dissipate, not time but the memory to ask.
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Where will he be when the question no longer sits on his lips ready to spill forward?
The latter is really the question that needs to be asked, because in the near future time will be stolen from his mind.

​Aho