David Salloum's Story

In 2014, at the age of 54, my wife Linda was diagnosed with young onset dementia, more specifically Alzheimer’s.

Her case followed a fairly typical progression in that it started to manifest itself about eight years before diagnosis. And what we have seen and are seeing is what the doctors have describes.

The Linda I married was wonderful. She was kind, thoughtful, considerate and very intelligent. And she loved to entertain. If we ever went to an event where we didn't know anyone, I knew before it was over, she would have met another couple or couples, and the next weekend, they’d be at our place for a dinner or a barbecue and not long after that, we would be invited to their house.

Linda was a senior land use planner with the city of St. Albert. And it's very difficult to watch someone who used to design and plan entire cities to start to have a hard time putting on a coat or a pair of shoes or being able to answer and then hang up the phone, and now she can no longer be that kind, thoughtful, considerate, intelligent person because she can neither walk nor talk. She cannot feed, cloth, bathe or toilet herself, and as is common with Alzheimer's, she now has Parkinson's disease.

Our two daughters were 11 and 15 when we got the news, and they have watched her go from a loving mother and an accomplished professional to someone now due to Alzheimer’s, is confined to a hospital bed or a wheelchair and they have done it with a Grace and a maturity and a courage that has made me very proud.

 

The initial reaction to the word Alzheimer’s is shock and then you very quickly become overwhelmed as you start to learn more about this thing and that's why I'm very grateful to a couple of people who were there right at the start.

The first was my doctor, Alan Osford, he’s since retired but he said some things which at the time sounded quite harsh but in retrospect were what I needed to hear. “there's two things you need to know” -he said, “the first one is that this disease only goes one direction, it only gets worse and the most you can hope for is an occasional plateau in the decline and the second thing is that the younger it comes on the faster it goes”, and he was spot on on both of those comments.

The other key person or group really was the staff at the Alzheimer's Society. They brought us in settled us down and helped us put a plan together, so we were better prepared for what was coming. The biggest thing they did for us though was make us feel like we weren't alone, that someone had our back and that was a great benefit to me and the girls.

You've heard the stats. Deema gave you the stats on this disease. So, it's safe to say, if you don't know somebody now who has it then you soon will and while the changes in the affected person become fairly obvious fairly quickly what won't be as obvious initially is what's going on with all the people around that person there is a huge emotional and energy drain brought on by a number of factors.

One of them is the time involved. Someone needs to be with this person to make sure they don't wander off, don't leave the stove on, or just don't walk into traffic and this time commitment only goes up as the person's condition worsens and that means that someone or a number of people are going to have their lives put on hold.

Another factor is the grieving process. Alzheimer’s is often referred to as the long goodbye because the person leaves you a little bit more everyday but physically, they're still there.  You watch your loved one go from the person you knew to someone who increasingly does not remember who you are or what you meant to each other. When I go to her room- Linda is in a full time facility now,  I try and be as cheerful as possible - hey Linda good to see you and what will happen is, her head is down like this,  it will kind of come up turn in the direction of the sound but it's with these two sort of vacant unfocused eyes that appear to be looking more through me than at me.

If you want to help out a caregiver, give them the gift of time. If it's possible. you can offer to stay with the person with the disease for an hour or two, uh you can offer to cut their grass, shovel their snow, or go get their groceries, this will give them time to go exercise, go to a movie or maybe even sit and read a book, or watch a television show without being interrupted, they'll appreciate it.

Before I finish, there's some people I need to recognize and thank my sister Kathy and her wonder dog Jasper, I think you may have seen the picture up there, Linda’s cousin Connie Bishop and her best friend Janice Comba. Linda's bridesmaids and a friend.  A big help to the family over the years, Doctor Angela Juby, Greg Christenson for all of his help on this event and Arlene Huhn and the staff at the Alzheimer's Society.

 I think this is a good example of that John Lennon quote –“life is what happens when you're making other plans”. For all the plans that we had, it's basically get up go to the office go to Linda’s, go home. Alzheimer’s took away my friend- my wife and the mother of our children at far too young at age- and if I could have her back for a minute, I would tell her how much she's loved and missed.  I would tell her how proud she can be of the girls and if there's anything more, we can be doing for her.  

My sincerest wish for you and your family is you never have to go down this road so your participation here is in effect paying it forward if not for yourselves then for others and on behalf of all the others thank you very much, we appreciate it.

Dementia Numbers in Alberta