how I really thought it would be with us....forever you & me
'til the end. Isn't it so sweet how he still loves her so much
& cares for her? I swear to God on the Bible I would have done
that for you. We were meant for each other, I miss you!!
Under the Needle: Couple's love endures through hardship of Alzheimer's
'I've become an expert in caring for her,' says 93-year-old husband
The sleeping, Donald Nettelblad said, is new. He motioned over to Kathryn, his wife of 71 years. She sat dozing on the right flank of their aging davenport. Her chin rested on her chest, and she curled her right arm across her breast and up to her throat, like a figure skater.
The arm, too, once bothered Donald, but, like the sleeping, he's resigned himself to it over the past few months. "I'd pull it down and then she'd put it right back," he said. "I guess she's comfortable like that. She's sleeping all of the time now. I wake her up to eat."
Kathryn is 94. Donald is 93. The couple has lived in the same Laurelhurst two-story brick home since 1934. For much of that time, Donald worked as a draftsman and operations manager for Pacific Marine Supply. In this home, they raised two children. Kathryn ran their interior life, cooked the meals and for 60 years taught beginner piano in the basement.
This was before she began forgetting the students' names. Before she forgot the music and that she ever had played piano. This was before she forgot the man she met at the Ravenna Boulevard Presbyterian Church decades ago when Seattle was a fishing and logging town and the Space Needle wasn't even a glimmer of a thought.
This was before she depended on Donald for everything, from bathing to clothing to food. One person takes care of Kathryn. And he'll be 94 next month.
"That's what Alzheimer's will do," Donald said, sitting in an armchair across from his wife. "It takes your mind away. But I've become an expert in caring for her."
Donald's days caring for Kathryn weren't always as they are now. Fifteen years ago, the doctor told the couple she had Alzheimer's. The disease only starts with the forgetting and confusion; it never stops there.
"Alzheimer's is a one-way street," Donald said. "From bad to worse, from bad to worse."
And so this is Donald's day, every day: He wakes at 8 a.m. and puts the coffee on. He walks outside and gets the paper. He divides a pastry and sets it on two plates. After a cup of coffee (usually by 10 a.m.), he goes into the bedroom to wake Kathryn. He dresses her and changes her if necessary.
He swings her legs off the bed and tugs her arm. "She still knows that she has to stand when I do that. I can't lift her."
He already has her cart in place. He pushes it behind her legs and she sits down. He wheels her into the kitchen and pops the pastry in the microwave. He wakes her up again to eat.
"You'd be surprised," he said. "She still can eat pretty good. But lately, she falls asleep during the meal, and so I have to wake her up a couple of times."
By now it's nearly noon. ("I've taken to calling it brunch," he said with a grin.) He wheels her into the living room. He tugs her hand and helps her shuffle sideways a foot to the davenport. She sits, curls her arm to her throat and dozes.
"That's her spot," he said. "All day, every day."
Donald takes this time to clean the house or maybe shop for food. He still has his driver's license but admits traffic scares him now. He can't drive Kathryn to the doctor anymore. They can't really talk, but "I know there's still something going on in there," he says. "I can feel it."
In the late afternoon, he makes her another snack. Dinner is whatever he's heated up in the microwave. He wakes her to eat. At 8 p.m., he starts putting her to bed, changing her clothes and bathing her.
"I tuck her in tight at night. I untuck her in the morning."
She still fidgets when she sleeps. Sometimes she reaches out to make sure Donald is there. He always is.
He expects that one night, she's not going to wake up. "That's the way it happens, right?" he said. "It's going to happen to me, too."
He worries about that and about himself. "I'm starting to get old. I'm starting to get weak. I'm the person who takes care of her." He takes seven pills a day including chemotherapy three days a week. Kathryn takes seven pills a day when he can get her to.
Now he has to begin getting ready for dinner after letting Kathryn sleep a bit more. He walked over to Kathryn, snoring softly on the davenport. That morning, knowing company would stop by, he'd dressed her in a soft aquamarine sweat suit and brushed her hair. Still, he didn't want any pictures taken. Not anymore.
"Kathryn," he said, tugging gently on her arm. "Our guests are leaving."
Kathryn raised her head slowly and blinked. She looked over at the front door. Then, suddenly, she beamed. "Come in," she whispered, smiling. "Come in."
No comments:
Post a Comment