Kind of depressed today, a neighbor a few doors down called me up and wanted to see me. I walk down to his house and talked to him and I don't know if it's the medicine he's on, or what - but he's completely lost his mind. In addition, in the last 3-4 months, he's lost about 40 lbs and is is skin and bones. He can no longer stand up, he's so weak and his legs are smaller than my arms.
The guy was really smart and lead one hell of interesting life, but this disease has completely wrecked him over the last 4 yrs or so. When I first met him, he was still walking albeit with the help of a cane and had low levels of involuntary spasms. Now, he's completely confined to a wheelchair and is basically twitching and having spasms non-stop, with even his eyes rolling up into his head when he talks.
He told me that he thinks it's the medicine he's on, but he knows he constantly hallucinating with times that he knows the difference and others where the hallucinations are his reality. The poor guy was telling me about how there's this group of three people who have taken up residence in his van but for some reason no one else has been able to catch them in there, but he knows they are there even if the rest of us can't see them. His carpet has also become infested with these bugs that shoot laser beams from their eyes and paralyze him with their stings/bites.
To see this person, who was still a vibrant, smart, energetic person just a few short years ago reduced to this shadow of himself, is really heart-breaking. As I told my son, if I ever get like that - I hope someone would do me the kindness of just ending it for me.
I'm trying to get hold of someone who can possibly move him to a facility, because even though he has a helper/care taker, she's only there 4 hrs a day or so, and I'm convinced he's going to do something that is not going to end well for him. He needs 24 hr care and someone watching over him as he continues to deteriorate.
Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's disease, along with Alzheimer's has to be my biggest fears as I get older. I think I would rather go join the Eskimos and have them put on an ice floe instead of going on a long time suffering from any of those three things. Seeing this up close and personal does nothing to change my mind on that score.
The guy was really smart and lead one hell of interesting life, but this disease has completely wrecked him over the last 4 yrs or so. When I first met him, he was still walking albeit with the help of a cane and had low levels of involuntary spasms. Now, he's completely confined to a wheelchair and is basically twitching and having spasms non-stop, with even his eyes rolling up into his head when he talks.
He told me that he thinks it's the medicine he's on, but he knows he constantly hallucinating with times that he knows the difference and others where the hallucinations are his reality. The poor guy was telling me about how there's this group of three people who have taken up residence in his van but for some reason no one else has been able to catch them in there, but he knows they are there even if the rest of us can't see them. His carpet has also become infested with these bugs that shoot laser beams from their eyes and paralyze him with their stings/bites.
To see this person, who was still a vibrant, smart, energetic person just a few short years ago reduced to this shadow of himself, is really heart-breaking. As I told my son, if I ever get like that - I hope someone would do me the kindness of just ending it for me.
I'm trying to get hold of someone who can possibly move him to a facility, because even though he has a helper/care taker, she's only there 4 hrs a day or so, and I'm convinced he's going to do something that is not going to end well for him. He needs 24 hr care and someone watching over him as he continues to deteriorate.
Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's disease, along with Alzheimer's has to be my biggest fears as I get older. I think I would rather go join the Eskimos and have them put on an ice floe instead of going on a long time suffering from any of those three things. Seeing this up close and personal does nothing to change my mind on that score.
