a supersensitive caregiver
Marjory, 62, is a super sensitive person, highly aware of everyone and everything around her, and she dreads retirement because she knows only too well that she will become overwhelmed by her husband's deteriorating illness when she takes on a full-time care-giving role.
"My husband and I had lots of plans for the time when the kids left home," sighs Marjory, "but all that changed when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and seemed to age faster than he should have at his age.”
“He's still quite lucid at times, and I don't have to do much personal type caring for him, but it's only a matter of time before I've got a vegetable for a husband and I'm just not cut out to be a full-time caregiver. It would kill me before it killed him.”
“It would be so much easier if the children were still with us but unfortunately they left home about five years ago, coinciding with the time my husband became unemployable due to early onset Alzheimer's.”
"At first my husband rebelled at the thought of being a househusband and having me support him financially," says Marjory, "but now he's more or less resigned to it, and half the time he doesn't even realize what's going on in any case."
“Basically, I’m not temperamentally suited to being a caregiver,” admits Marjory. “I fear for the future and my ability to cope, and if I could work forever and pay for a full-time carer at home I would do that - but, of course, my working days are numbered.”
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