Jennifer Triplett

I absolutely hate it when people don't tell me something I ought to know. My mother-in-law does it all the time. "I thought I told you so-and-so was sick/married/dead." My mom does this, too. It annoys the hell out of me. But I thought my dad was different. He usually makes a point of keeping me in the loop about what's going on in our extended family. But not this time.

My grandmother, his mother, has had declining health for the past few years. She was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and that was the explanation given for her increasing frailness. About a year ago, she had a stroke. The effects were severe enough that the decision was made that she should move into an assisted-living facility. While she has improved much since last spring, she's in no condition to live by herself.

It turns out she was misdiagnosed and has Alzheimer's disease, not Parkinson's. And my dad found this out weeks ago! He said he guessed he just forgot to tell me. Maybe he did or maybe he wasn't ready to tell me. So while he has had a little while for this to sink in, I have not.

Alzheimer's is a vicious disease that slowly robs you of your memories and kills you by shutting down your body. Medication, if it works, doesn't improve things for very long.

Looking back, I can see behavior in my grandmother that was probably Alzheimer's but I attributed to her stroke. She would be telling me something about one of her children and get their names mixed up. She has five to keep up with so I told myself that was the problem. She would ask questions she had asked an hour earlier or forget she had spoken with someone. "She's just getting older," I would tell myself.

When you think about all the ways the end of your life could be, this has to be one of the worst. No one wants to get old, but I have always been comforted by the idea that I'll have my husband and children and (hopefully) grandchildren and all the memories that go with that. Those things are slowly slipping away from my grandmother.

Even though sadness and hopelessness have washed over me in the few days since I found out what was going on, I'm fighting back against that by coming up with things I can do to help my grandmother. She has a photo album that I'm going to add descriptions to so it's easier for her to know who's in the pictures. Usually when I visit her, we talk about what's been going on in our lives lately. I'm going to make a point of also telling her stories of when my sister and I used to stay with her and my grandfather in the summer. I'll remind her of the pancakes he made us all for breakfast and the big Sunday dinners they would have at their house with all their children and grandchildren.

I've also got to be strong for and support my dad so he can take care of her. Thankfully, he doesn't have to do this on his own. He has a brother and three sisters (and the accompanying in-laws) to help.

My grandmother used to keep my son when he was a baby and I was in college, and for years he would spend the night at her house. I was so happy to see how close they were and I hate that she might forget that. So I'll continue to take Sam and Lucy to see their great-grandmother and hopefully the sight of them will cheer her, even if she doesn't quite remember why it does.

Something I haven't done yet is tell Sam what's going on. Lucy is too little to understand, but Sam is pretty sharp and kids notice things that adults don't think they do. So I have to explain that even if she forgets that he plays baseball or when his birthday is, she still loves him.

I'll admit that there's a lot about this disease that I don't know yet, but I've been known to research things to death so this will be no different. There are many resources out there to help Alzheimer's patients and their families. The Alzheimer's Association, The Alzheimer's Foundation of America and the National Institute on Aging all have Web sites with information ranging from symptoms and treatments to how to cope with the disease and its effects. A Google search will turn up these sites and many more.

For me, knowledge takes the edge off of something like cancer or Alzheimer's that's really just this vague concept until you have to deal with it, and turns into something that, while no less painful, can be dealt with in a rational way.