Living with the Disabled

There are so many different forms of disabilities that one can have. There are those with physical disabilities, hearing impaired, blindness, mental illness, and even speech and language disabilities. I will be discussing my own story on living with someone who has advanced stages of Alzheimer’s. I grandma moved in with us about three years ago because we began to notice certain things that were a bit different about my grandma. She was living in an assisted living facility and we noticed she was losing weight rapidly. She was losing her wallet constantly. We found money stashed all throughout her apartment. At the time we just it was strange and blamed it on forgetfulness but when she moved in with us we began to realize why these things were happening. When in assisted living they do not come and get you for breakfast, lunch, or dinner because that’s the tenant’s responsibility. My grandma was forgetting to go down stairs and eat her meals. Her fringe was bare and she was forgetting to take any vitamins or medication that she was on and it’s because of her Alzheimer’s. We moved my grandma here from Arizona a few years after my grandpa passed and she moved into assisted living right away so we weren’t around her much too really know what was going on. No one will understand anyone’s disability unless they live with it themselves or are live with someone who has a disability. No one will understand the strain that it puts on families. Even though we love this individual, living with someone who has a disability is a tough job. My mother is cardiologist and works with the elderly on a daily basis so it worked out great for my grandma to move in with us. Unfortunately it’s like catering to a child. That is the mindset they have. Their brains turn in fluff and it’s an extremely pain thing to watch. My grandma comes home from daycare everyday (me and my mom both work full time and she can’t be left alone) not knowing who we are or our names. My mother has to bathe her, feed her, do her laundry, lay out her clothes, take her to bathroom every hour or so because she has accidents, and every other tasks that we do throughout the day. People need to understand that it’s not just a loss of their memory, they lose everything. My grandma still thinks she lives in Arizona if you ask her where she lives. She lets our cat out on a weekly basis because we also have a dog so she sees us letting him and thinks its ok to let the cat out. We truly have to watch her every move. It’s a hard enough getting our lives together every day let alone getting someone ready who just isn’t there mentally. This is my grandmas disability. I can say with confidence I understand why children decide to put their parents in senior living when it gets to out of control because caring for an elder is a time consuming job that not everyone can do physically and mentally. I’ve attached an article on symptoms on those with Alzheimer’s.

http://rmhealthy.com/10-signs-alzheimers/?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=…