Reader TTS

AFTER GETTING HIS TERMINAL CANCER DIAGNOSIS, YOUR FATHER TURNED TO HIS DOCTOR AND SAID: “NOT A LOT OF LAUGHS IN YOUR LINE OF WORK, ARE THERE, PAL?" He got it. It was a very sympathetic

moment on all sides. The doctor. My father. There was laughter — sort of muted from the doctor's point of view — because we all understood that [my father] had reclaimed a sense of who

he was. IN CAREGIVING WE TALK ABOUT BUILDING YOUR “TEAM” OF HELPERS. TELL US ABOUT THE TEAM YOU COMPILED. I built that team. I put Lucy, who had been my kids’ nanny for 21 years, in place

[to live and care for Mulgrew's mother]. When I became the health care guardian, I pushed that with my mother. Otherwise I knew there would be this sort of extended period of limping

along with poor care in the house because of my father's recalcitrance. Caregiving [help] is the essential thing for all people who have someone who is suffering from Alzheimer's.

Sometimes the problem is resources. My mother had her own money, and I had money. So once I got her to sign the [legal] papers, I said to my father, “I'm in charge. And I am putting

this in place." GET HELP FOR COMMON CAREGIVING CONFLICTS WITH AARP'S CARE GUIDE YOU HAVE A LARGE, INVOLVED FAMILY. YOU WRITE ABOUT HOW YOUR PARENTS’ ILLNESSES AFFECTED THE

RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR SIBLINGS, AND BROUGHT YOU BACK TO YOUR CHILDHOOD ROLES. It crystallized those roles and then forever changed those roles. Once you lose your parents, what you were as

a child is gone. So this was our last shot at being together in that crucible, both with him and the longer journey with her. And so, we enacted our roles faithfully and intensely and to

the last moment. And when they were both dead, I would say that everything changed. The parents, of course, are the center of the family. And in our case, two dramatic and extremely

charismatic figures are gone now. So with that, there is sort of a death of the unit. So while we are still close and we love one other deeply, that part was over. YOU WERE VERY CLOSE TO

YOUR MOTHER. WHAT DID HER ILLNESS TEACH ABOUT CAREGIVING FOR SOMEONE WITH ALZHEIMER'S? It taught me how deeply and unmutedly I loved her. And up until the day she died, I was going to

do my utmost to bring her comfort…. It taught me a degree of patience. It taught me that this disease is more pernicious than any I have ever known, including my sister's inoperable

brain tumor, which was grotesque beyond belief. There is something about that strange, darkening walk through a staggering thicket that goes beyond heartbreaking and into a world of

unfathomable despair. And don't think they don't know it. If I meet one more person of a sick parent who says, “They don't know it; they are out of it,” I am going to have to

just shake them hard. They are not out of it. They are _in_ it. And you have no sense where they are. But as long as their eyes are open and they are eating, they are somewhere. It is a

living hell.