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| This is Spencer with my parents at the condo in St. George . . when Spence was about 2 . . . 2007? |
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| Snow Canyon, 2013 |
We just got back from a Thanksgiving trip down to St. George, Utah. My parents have a condo down there that my family uses quite often . . . but it's pretty rare that my parents and siblings and all of us go at the same time! This time my parents and oldest sister came too! And my brother and his wife and 4 kids came in from Colorado and stayed with his in-laws just a few miles away. Although we were still missing half our family, we had a good time together! One morning, early, I decided to join my Dad and brother for a walk up Snow Canyon. Other family members thought I was totally nuts to wake up at 6am while on vacation, but I saw it as a rare opportunity to be with family, and to talk openly with them . . something that we don't have a lot of chances to do. We walked about 5 or 6 miles that morning and had a great talk! It actually gave me some comfort to talk to my Dad and to find out how he is really feeling. Many of us kids have believed that maybe he's been experiencing some depression in dealing with my Mom on a 24/7 basis, but he assured us that he's not. For sure he experiences some loneliness as he is no longer able to carry on conversations with my Mom like he used to. He sometimes hungers for adult conversation, he says. Fortunately for him though, my parents have some good friends that have stuck by them through this whole ordeal! Their social life is still alive and well, thanks to many good and patient friends! When we returned from our walk that early morning, we expected to find my Mom still in bed or just hanging out in her pajamas at the condo. No, she was all dressed in the clothes she had worn the day before, with her shoes on, and was ready to go walking with us. I felt terrible! Did anyone invite her? Well the reality is, my Dad often goes walking by himself in the early mornings back at their house and my Mom usually does not go with him. She sleeps in. That's what we figured and hoped she would be doing that morning. Well she did not seem too happy about it and appeared offended and a little sad. I felt bad and told her that we hadn't known she wanted to come . . . but she wondered why we hadn't invited her. She even told my older sister that she thought my Dad didn't invite her because he was going with "a pretty girl" . . . that girl being me! Again, she did not connect the fact that my Dad went walking with two of their children! This paranoid behavior is becoming more and more frequent. My Mom has sometimes expressed concern to me that her friends are playing tennis without her or she's being left out by certain friends. So sad that she really believes these things!
I've heard that people with Alzheimer's vary greatly in their temperament. Some go through an angry phase where they are often angry. Others never go through that and are mostly calm and docile. My Dad's Mom, one of my Grandmas, always was very calm . . . and my Mom is mostly calm. I have seen her raise her voice at my Dad and my Dad revealed to us that she sometimes yells and hits him. That surprised me. It's so unlike her.
Flashing back to my journal 7 years ago . . .
August, 2006
As I've mentioned before, I believe this whole ordeal with my Mom started over 4
years ago while my parents were serving as mission President of the London
South Mission. My fourth child (of 6) was born
just a couple of weeks after they left.
About two years into their three year mission, my Mom started reporting
home that she was experiencing different signs of stress and anxiety, like
losing handfuls of hair, forgetting things, feelings of anxiety, etc. This didn’t seem too unusual -- the wife of a
mission President feeling stressed? We
didn’t think too much of it at the time.
From what I have heard and from what I observed from visiting them on a
few different occasions, being a mission President’s wife does not at all
appear to be an easy task. I always used
to think that it sounded quite glamorous to go with my husband and serve as a
mission President’s wife someday, but since our visits to England
I have changed my mind. :) Of course we
would go if called upon, but I know that it’s a lot of hard work!
My Mom
came home on a few different occasions during their mission in England. One time was for the wedding of my brother
Mike and I can't remember what else she came home for. During one of these trips my
Mom visited the doctor and was given a prescription for Zoloft for her anxiety,
and maybe even a little depression. The
doctors were not completely sure what was causing my Mom to feel this way, but
Zoloft was given to her to hopefully do the trick.
Now, four or five years later, I’m not sure that Zoloft is doing anything for the problem, but she
is still taking it in small quantities. We’ve
been hoping that it would solve the problem! My Mom
is about to turn 63 next month and we have been holding out hope that maybe
hormonal changes have been causing her short term memory loss. We actually know better . . . but one can hope!
Brain diseases in her family . . .
Brain diseases in her family . . .
My Grandpa Tanner
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| This is my Mom's family . . Grandma and Grandpa Tanner, sister and 3 brothers, probably in the early 60's! My Mom is in the black! |
I was
never fortunate enough to be able to meet my Mom’s Dad, Richard Tanner,
since he passed away at the age of 50, just a few years before I was born. I heard he was a great guy! Ironically, he and my Grandma Tanner were
serving as Mission President in Australia
at the time that some strange symptoms started to emerge. He began to be very forgetful and his personality was changing, much like my Mom. Sadly, he
was sent home early from his mission and was not allowed to return to his
practice as an OB/GYN. From what I have
heard, he was a very well respected and well liked doctor in the Salt Lake Valley who had a
thriving practice before leaving on his mission. Can you imagine at age 50 being told that you can't go back to work? It was a few years later, after returning from Australia, that my Grandpa was found
dead in his car that he had turned on in an enclosed garage. My Grandpa had taken his own life. Comforting to the family, at his funeral, President Hugh B. Brown spoke about how he feels that my Grandpa
was not in his right mind and he was sure that he would not be held responsible for his actions. It was later found that my Grandpa had Picks Disease which is a rare form of dementia. The symptoms of Alzheimers and Pick's disease are very similar, but I guess they are different diseases.
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| Grandpa and Grandma Tanner in Australia in the 60's |
When I
was ten years old (1979) and my Grandma Tanner (my Mom’s Mom) was 60 years old,
about 10 years after my Grandpa died, amazingly enough she also started showing strange signs of a brain
disease. What are the odds? We were not sure what it was
until her death just a few months later.
My Grandma, Dale Tanner, was one of a few cases of a form of Mad Cow Disease
called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease here in Utah. I was not able to see her in her last month or
so of life, but I’m told that it’s probably for the better because I would not
want that image of her in my mind.
Instead, I remember her happy self who always seemed to be laughing or
cracking a joke. Whenever my Grandma was taking a photo of a group of
people and she wanted them to smile, she would say, “Say Sh--!” It may sound like she was a somewhat vulgar
lady and not very lady-like, but actually I think it was all just a part of her
sense of humor, and I remember her as being very much a lady! I liked her a lot, and I think other people
loved her and her sense of humor too!
After my parent's mission . . .
My parents returned home from their mission about 3 years ago in 2003. For the
few years following their return,
things didn’t seem to change much with my Mom.
She talked a lot about having anxiety, but life went on as usual. She went back to playing tennis that she
loved, and traveling with my Dad and friends, and most fun to my Mom are the
bike rides that she continues to go on.
She loves her bike! There were a
few instances where I thought she might be losing it, but for the most part,
life seemed normal. One particular
instance which I remember quite well was one day at my parent’s house when I
was visiting my parents with a few of my kids.
I was about to leave and as usual I gave my Mom a kiss and a hug. Not remembering her exact words, she said, in
essence, “I am so glad that you are my daughter and am grateful that I had you
two girls. What would I do without
you?” I’m guessing that she was talking
about me and my older sister Paige, but the thing is, I also have two younger
sisters and two younger brothers. She
quickly caught her mistake and seemed a little embarrassed that she had not remembered, for just a moment, about her other 4 kids! I tried not to think much about it at the
time, but I do remember shedding a few tears about it to a friend a few days
later. In the back of all of our minds,
we just hoped that somehow, what we were witnessing with her asking the same
question over and over within a few minutes, and saying some strange things,
that it was just stress and anxiety. I
guess to some degree we were all in a bit of denial . . . and hoping.
It wasn’t
until about this time last year that people started asking us, “Is your Mom ok?” or,
with much concern in their voice they ask, “How is your Mom doing?” This question just really makes me feel
uncomfortable, and upsets me. I don’t
want people to be noticing that my Mom is not the same as she has always
been . . . the same, friendly, outgoing, smart and loving person. I also don’t want to be reminded
of what is happening. I can go along for
days and even weeks not getting upset about her, but then someone will ask me
the dreaded question and it brings back up all of the emotions. I’ve started to say to people that ask me,
“This is my monthly mini break down.” I
guess I have to get my emotions out sometime instead of having them all build
up. I guess if that were to happen, I
would eventually explode and have a real, full blown break down.
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