Satan, Your Mama and Me

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I feel like I am about to begin earning my keep.

I’ve been a caregiver for almost four years now, the last eight months on a full-time, 24-hour-a-day basis, and it is beginning to get challenging.

At first, it sucked. But it was manageable. My wife Terry, who is now in the middle stages of  Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, was still able to do most things, many things, okay, some things, on her own.

But lately, the gauntlet seems to have been thrown down. Hard! And I know exactly who threw it down. The Great Deceiver. Mephistopheles. The Devil.

When I first became a caregiver, I could deal with the decline of Terry’s cognitive skills. And once I took an early retirement so I could be with Terry all of the time, I could explain things to her. I could help her do everything. I could finally, with complete confidence, tell her that I know what is best for everyone. Or at least what is best for her.

But now, I am afraid, because of this god-damn disease, Terry’s personality is beginning to change. And that is hard to take. I guess it might be like when a guy marries a girl only for her looks and then her looks begin to fade.  Fast. Like she gains 100 pounds and her face begins to look like it belongs in a Picasso painting.

Or a woman who marries a guy for his money and he turns out to be a Bernie Madoff. As in he ‘made off’ with all your money.

Surprisingly, some of Terry’s personality changes are okay.

When I recently told Terry that her beloved Red Sox won again, she said “Great! They are my Peeps.”  I had to clean up the coffee I spit out onto the kitchen floor. The last time Terry said ‘peeps’ it was 1990-something and she was putting those yellow marshmallow chicks into the kids’ Easter baskets.

One of Terry’s favorite country music groups is Florida Georgia Line, and they sing a song called “God, Your Mama and Me.” As in no one can love you more than God, your mama and me.

Terry was getting her words mixed up again and couldn’t say the words to the song. When this happens I usually say it over and over to her and she tries to repeat. When I would say “God, your mama” she would say “God, my mama.” We kept on going back and forth “Your mama.” “My mama.”  I tried to get her by saying “Mars, Uranus” but then she figured out what she was doing. Our daughter was enjoying it, laughing, and was wishing she had taped it for America’s Funny Home Videos.

But some of Terry’s personality changes are NOT okay. As far as how days start, I recently had one that could have been a bit better.

Terry usually gets up in the morning around 9:30. The other day she woke up at 7:30 for a bathroom break and when we returned to bed she said she was hungry. When I tried to convince her to go back to sleep and wait an hour or two, she lashed out. My experience of being her caregiver has taught me that the later she sleeps the more “with it” (for lack of a better expression) she is. When I was still working she would sometimes sleep till noon. I would get her up when I came home at lunchtime.

So when she told me at 7:30 that she was hungry, I told her to go back to sleep. That is when she yelled that she hates me and then she hit me.

Good morning to you too!

I realize it was not her, it was this god-damn disease, but still. To hear the person you feed, shower and dress yell at you like that and actually strike you, it is a small taste of hell.

I have been a long-time believer in divine intervention. But I am also a big believer in just the opposite kind of intervention.

Ever since Terry got deeply involved with her Bible Study group, she has had several different health issues. The more often they (thyroid, hiatal hernia, Alzheimer’s) occurred and the more Terry studied the Bible the more apparent it became to both of us.

Many scoff at the idea that Satan exists, and that he has his hands in our everyday life. To some, Satan is a fictional character of novels, video games and horror movies. 

About 43 years ago during Senior Week at the Jersey Shore I saw a new horror movie called The Exorcist with six of the toughest guys I went to high school with the first rainy night we were there and none of us could sleep without a light on the rest of the week.

If you believe in God, then you have to believe in Satan. And if you believe that through prayer that the “man upstairs” can provide help, then you have to believe that the “man downstairs”, the devil, is using his influence as well. It is not as if once he talked Eve into eating the forbidden fruit he just slithered off. That is where he just got his start.

Reba McEntire has a song out now called Back to God, as in we have to give this world back to God. Sorry, Reba. I am afraid it is a little too late. I am afraid this world belongs to Satan. Look at the facts.

War. Injustice. Trump. (was that redundant?)

Against my better judgement I recently took Terry on a road trip to visit her mother. Don’t get me wrong. For 35 years I have enjoyed taking Terry and our kids to visit Terry’s childhood home. Sorry, no mother-in-law jokes here. I have the greatest mother-in-law in the world. She wanted to see Terry and Terry always loves seeing her. Plus all five of Terry’s sisters were in town so it was a great opportunity. I figured the ever-increasing hassle of traveling with Terry would be worth it. And it was. The trip was great! No major problems at all.

Until we got home. I guess it was the lack of a routine, but Terry began imagining things and insisting that she saw and did things that were not happening. And she was having outbursts of anger, something she has never done in her life.

So this is when the men get separated from the boys. No longer am I just trying to help Terry understand what is going on. I am now dealing with hallucinations, fits of rage, severe mood swings.

When the kids were little and they would get a scrape, a bump or a bruise, before they would start to cry I would always say “It’s a good thing you’re tough!” and they would always try to act tough and maybe not cry.

Until next time, it is a good thing I am tough.

Bud

budfocht@gmail.com