Can I Be Peace if You Be Quiet?

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and my quiet wife Terry has become quite a talker. And it not only bothers me, it scares me.

When I first met Terry, she was so quiet, it was like pulling teeth to get her to open up and talk, especially about herself.  Now, she talks TO herself. All night. Now, when she opens up in the middle of the night it is like trying to fall asleep when you have a toothache.

I’ve told people for years that when Terry and I first met, with her poor hearing along with her thick Rhode Island accent, our conversations consisted mainly of us saying to each other; “What?”, “Excuse me?”, or as proper New Englanders often say when they don’t hear or understand what you say, “Please?”.

A few months ago, well into the middle stage of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, Terry began talking to herself.  At first it was as if she was ‘thinking out loud.’ The voice was a whisper, like no one else was supposed to hear. When I first began hearing it I would ask her what she said, and she acted like ‘What are you taking about? I didn’t say anything.’ and she really wasn’t aware that she had whispered something out loud.

The whispering is happening more and more often, and a few times lately she has whispered to herself “She won’t shut up! She keeps talking.” like it was someone else in her head that she was talking to. Or talking about. Or both. I’m not sure.

What I AM sure of is that it scared me.

Not quite as scared as I am of the violent behavior, though. The anger, the rage. Terry has gone from a ‘flight’ type of person to a ‘fight’ type. Now I am becoming the flighter. (Is that a word? flightee?)

The worst is when Terry wakes up from a dream and there is no convincing her that it was not real. If that dream happens to make her angry, look out. She sometimes wakes up fightin’ mad.

I used to keep a sawed-off wood baseball bat in my bedroom. It was my low-tech security system, a former 34 inch, 33 ounce thick-handle Louisville Slugger, cut off between the label and the sweet spot. About 25 inches of white ash whoop ass.

On the advice of Terry’s neurologist (and my sister) I hid the bat.

So far, the only thing Terry has hit me with is her open hands. Let’s keep it that way. I can handle that. To paraphrase Paul Newman’s Butch Cassidy and his reason for you not hitting your mother with a shovel, that baseball bat could “leave a dull impression on my mind.”

I didn’t want to do it but on more advice from Terry’s neurologist, as well as family members and friends, we put Terry on Zoloft, to go along with the Alzheimer’s meds (Donepezil and Nemenda) that she has been taking for years.

I was hesitant to give Terry the Zoloft, an antidepressant, because I didn’t want to numb her down. The last year or so she would laugh harder but also get more pissed off more often. Her emotions began to extreme out.  I did want to stop the anger. I needed to stop the anger, but I didn’t want to stop the laughter. I needed Terry’s laughter. Terry laughing is the greatest sound in the world. Better than the sound of crunching leaves or crunching snow under foot. Better than the sound of crashing waves on the beach. Better than the sound of bubble wrap popping.

It has been a week on the Zoloft and so far, so good with the anger. The violence and anger have decreased greatly, and I am still able to make her laugh every day. The problem is Terry takes more cat-naps during the day, falling asleep for two to 20 minutes at a time on the couch while watching television.

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE it when Terry takes a cat-nap. It gives this big cat a chance to do things, like visit the big cat litter box in peace.

But because of the cat-naps during the day she sleeps less at night. And when Terry is awake at night, I am awake at night.

Lying awake in bed she will whisper to herself the entire time, sometimes saying the same five or six-word sentence 10-15 times in a row. Good thing I hid that bat, I might have hit myself in the head.

Sometimes I think I need a Zoloft!  At first, I probably did. I tried to stop the talking. It was so monotonous and when I am sleep deprived I am not the most patient person. (probably not when I have had my eight hours either).

But trying to stop the whispering just made Terry angry, and we don’t want that! What is that expression? ‘Happy wife, happy life?’ Well I have another expression. ‘Pissed off wife, hide the knife!’

So, I have learned to just let her go on talking. Like when the baby has to learn to cry itself back to sleep instead of getting picked up and rocked. Just let her talk herself back to sleep. The only time I interject now is when the voice begins to get angry. Then I try to nip it in the bud before Bud gets nipped.

A couple of times Terry has woken up in the middle of the night upset at me because I put her in the dark, so I had to put the light on. As the late-great John Lennon said, Whatever Gets You Through the Night.  So now I sometimes have to sleep with a bright light above our bed.

Another down side to the Zoloft is the decrease in Terry’s ability to take direction. Not that she was very good at it before we started this new med, but I have definitely seen an immediate decline the last week since she began taking it.

And I’m not talking about tough directions, like where to find Atlantis or how to make an atomic bomb. I’m talking about directions like “brush, spit, rinse, spit. Brush, spit, rinse, spit” or “take your shoes off” or “stop hitting me.”

But that is just another thing I have to work on. This caregiving thing is a fluid situation, always changing. It is like being a Marine; adapting, improvising, overcoming.

Except instead of someone shooting at me, my wife is slapping me or worse yet, talking to me when I am trying to sleep, with a bright light over me.

Okay, maybe I’m not like a Marine. But maybe some kind of soldier. Maybe like one of my favorite singers Sade (pronounced ‘SHAH day’ for those of you who don’t Jazz and R&B) used to sing.  Maybe I’m a Soldier of Love.

A few minutes and a few paragraphs ago I wrote that the worst part was Terry waking up fightin’ mad.

Upon further review, I know that’s not true. The worst part is that one day way too soon I won’t hear that monotonous talking in the middle of the night anymore. And I don’t think that silence will give me peace.

Sometimes there is no peace in quiet.

.

Until next time, appreciate things your loved ones do that might bother or scare you.

Bud

budfocht@gmail.com