I recently read a book "In Love"written by Amy Bloom and it inspired this blog.  The book was riveting to me and I read it in about 3 hours.  I couldn't put it down!  She married Brian Ameche, who had played football at Yale and then became a architect of renown. Their marriage was the second marriage for each of them and they were deeply in love.  They had been married for 14 years when they both started noticing subtle changes in Brian's personality and thought process.  After the devastating diagnosis of Alzheimer's, Brian immediately said he wanted to die on his feet, not kneeling down, and he was going to find a way to do it.  But then he told Amy he was putting her in charge of that, because he trusted her judgment so much.  And because she was a writer, he wanted her to write about it.  At first she told him she would do neither.  But he was so determined and so persistent, that she started researching ways for assisted suicide.  First she found that the 9 states in the United States that allow it have such stringent guidelines, such as being a resident of that state, that it made it next to impossible.  She researched other options such as drowning, but none of them seemed satisfactory, and she would have to be careful not to assist so she wouldn't be prosecuted as an accomplice.  In the end, she found Dignitas, a non profit organization in Zurich, Switzerland that would also help people from other countries, and that had already done over 1000 assisted suicides.  There were stringent guidelines, referrals, and paperwork to be completed that was daunting, along with the travel to Zurich and the $10,000 fee.  But they jumped through all the hoops, and the story of them saying good-bye to family (they told them what they were going to do), the trip there, and the days they spent together there are heart wrenching.  But then the day came, and Brian, still fully aware of what he was doing, drank the Sodium Pentobarbital concoction and died in her arms.  It makes me think of Jack Kevorkian, a pathologist in Michigan in the 1990s who helped at least 130 people commit assisted suicide, though probably from incurable diseases such as cancer.

The book stirred many emotions for me.  I am sure Bob knew what was happening long before he would admit it.  After he retired, I would come home and he would tell me who he talked to on the phone that day.  I was amazed at how he could track many of them down, with all the phone numbers.  Was he calling them to say good-bye?  And many people have told me in later years that he called them too, and just chatted for an hour (or two!)  And is his not eating now somehow in the back of his mind like an assisted suicide?  I can't really believe that he is able to reason that much, but who knows?  He is losing 2-3 pounds a month and is down to 128 pounds.  My mother, when she had to go to a nursing home decided she didn't want to live any more.  So she stopped eating.  But that didn't last long.  Maybe because the doctor asked me if I wanted a feeding tube placed.  I told him, "Ask her, she is totally with it!"  When he asked, she told him most definitely not!  And then she started eating again...Two nurses separately told me that when I wasn't there she was the life of the party.  She was just making me feel guilty for putting her in a nursing home.  But by now, I think I have worked through the guilt of putting both her and Bob in a facility.  To have done otherwise would have been impossible.

 I remember Robin Williams, who suffered alone with depression for many years.  He died by his own hand by hanging, when he found out he had Lewy Body dementia.  How could someone who made so many people laugh come to such a tragic end?  Even King David of Biblical fame probably suffered from depression.  I heard it said that if he had been on medication, the Psalms would never have been written.  One day he was "Oh Lord how mighty thou art" and the next day he was saying "Oh God where are you?"  I said much earlier in one of my blogs that I take medication for depression.  And to those who say that I don't have faith and trust in God because I take medication, I would say "God helps those who help themselves, and shows them how to navigate this complex life." My sister, on a high cycle, declared herself cured of bipolar disease, stopped taking her medication for it, plunged into the depths of despair and committed suicide within days.  

So, in closing, I ask that you be kind to those you come in contact with.  So many friends right now are trying to navigate the care of their spouse or loved one with dementia and they are overwhelmed.  The Alzheimer's office that was such a great help to me in the beginning has been closed since COVID started, and the caregivers don't even know where to start.  But everyone is fighting a battle that you don't know about, so please, just be kind. 

Betty