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FTD- Our journey begins

A page in the diary "the carer got sick - no help for them"
Written by Faye Sunday, 26 April 2009 00:53

Feb 2nd 2008 is the day that will be etched in my brain forever. This was the day they told us my beloved 56 year old hubby had FTD. i sat in the specialists office looking at him as if he was a fool, didn't he know my hubby was aprofessional person with 2 University degrees, what did he know a few, tests, a scan, MRI and SPECT test......they were wrong. That is denial - stage one - the I got angry, so i researched and researched, and surfed the net, looking for trails, hoping to find out they had made a mistake. Hubby on the other hand seen oblivious to the fact that his brain is shrinking, is speech was hard to understand, then along come ARICEPT - the drug which gave me hope, it really just bought us a bit more time, the anger is sloly turning into acceptance. With acceptance comes the telling close friends and family members only to see them abandon us. So we go into the closet tell any-one who notices hubby is not quite right he has a brain tumor and sympathy is given. Then you get angry again at the stigma attached to Dementias, mental illness is treatable and curable, some brain tumors are treatable and curable - Dementia is not treatable, curable and is not going to get any better........So now our journey to acceptance begins, ........
Faye

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Comments from the community :

Faye, I understand what you are going though. I have the same problem my husband is 55yrs old. We found out just when he turned 55yrs. He was sent home from work on long service leave, there reason was stress, then after all the tests it was confirmed in December 08. I did all the things you did, all the research so that I could understand what is a head. The plans for retirement do not happen any more. We did one trip but it seemed to make things worse until we got home then he was okay. He has refused all medication so far. The Dr did suggest games on the computer to help so we encouage that he play games. We also try to ignore the fact that he has it and ask him to do stuff as though he is normal. This seems to help a bit. My husband is in denial and does not want me to know anything about, and infact told the Dr he was fine last time we went.
The best thing is that we try and keep our spirits up. His speech is not affected yet, and when people ask when he does strange things I tell them. His work colleges seem to be the only friends that we losted so I suppose we are lucky, his friends still call for a chat and drop in to see that he is fine. Family feel that they are been treated the worst, I explain that he relaxes more around them and maybe that is why. He enjoys the grandkids as they are too young to judge him he feels. We should chat since our hubbys have the some type of dementia FTD. Keep smiling Laurel

Written by  laurel, Monday, 4 May 2009 02:58