Alzheimer's Blog:

GUILT

This is something all caretakers seem to experience. So I decided to look up this word and here is what I found.

a. The fact of being responsible for the commission of an offense. See Synonyms at blame.
b. Law The fact of having been found to have violated a criminal law; legal culpability.
c. Responsibility for a mistake or error.
d. Remorseful awareness of having done something wrong.
e. Self-reproach for supposed inadequacy or wrongdoing.

So what does that have to do with Alzheimer's you may ask. Many people handle guilt in different ways. This terrible disease brings out the worse in many people and they have done things or said things which later they were sorry for.

Check out this video of what this disease did to my husband and how he shares the guilt he carries today.
http://www.azfamily.com/good-morning-arizona/Alzheimers-A-Caretakers-Journal--69660012.html

I want to share with you the event I went through yesterday. I work on an ambulance, as a paramedic. My job is to try and save lives. I got called to a scene for an ill person.

It seems that this house in a neighborhood we went to has a few elderly people living there. Some families prefer to have their loved ones live in a home environment instead of a nursing home. We went code 2, meaning no lights or sirens, as did the engine. The fire engine got there first and when I walked in the room these men were kneeling around a woman in her 80's doing CPR. We got to work, a person bagging her with oxygen, a person doing chest compressions, someone putting in an IV, another one drawing up the right drugs to try and bring her back. We intubated her, did three rounds of atropine and three rounds of epi, a bolus of IV fluid but she left to be with Jesus.

I found out that this woman has only lived there for a week. Her daughter couldn't handle her anymore at home and tried to find a nice place for her to live. It wasn't the living arrangements that killed her. It was just her time. But I know for a fact that the daughter feels guilt because she moved her mother and wonders today if she hadn't moved her would she still be alive.

Please, please, please find your self a support group to help you deal with your emotions. I hope this helps.

Sincerely,
Marie Fostino
Alzheimer's A Caretakers Journal
Seaboard Press An Imprint Of James A Rock Pub., Co.
www.mariefostino.com
www.mariefostino.blogspot.com