The day my husband forgot who I am: One woman's heartbreaking account of Alzheimer's

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/da ... am-7690474" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Kelly Fraser, 40, tells The New Day her story of caring for her husband Ian, who was diagnosed with the incurable disease when he was just 47 years old

Rome, Paris, Madrid – we had our old age planned out. We were going to sell up, buy a camper van and travel round Europe together on a big adventure.

Our dreams were stolen from us, though, when my husband Ian was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

The diagnosis was ­heartbreaking in itself, but the fact that Ian was only 47 seemed especially cruel.

Now, day by day, I’m ­watching the man I love lose more and more of his memory and become incapable of ­performing even the simplest of tasks.

He’s gone from being the hardworking, fun-loving, hugely capable man I married to someone who struggles to tie his own shoelaces.

And worst of all when I show him photos of our wedding – the best day of our lives together – he can’t even recognise me.

One day he just forgot who I am. I remember the happy days when we met.

Ian and I were working at a Royal Mail sorting office – he asked me out one day and we had our first date in April, 2004.

Immediately, I felt I had met my soulmate. It was as quick and as simple as that.

We both loved travelling and went on some amazing ­holidays in the first few years we were together.

It was during a trip to Italy that Ian told me that his mum had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in her 40s, and had died when she was just 50.

Ian wept as he talked about how hard it had been on him, his dad and his siblings, seeing this once lively and capable woman deteriorate before their eyes. “Is it hereditary?” I asked.

“We’ve been told it’s not,” he replied.

Ian and I had been together four years when I got pregnant, and we married.

Our son Tommy was born soon after and we settled happily into family life at our home in Medway, Kent.

Two years later, I noticed that Ian was becoming very ­forgetful. “We need to tax the car,” he said one day, but we’d done it just the day before. He couldn’t remember ­conversations we’d had earlier in the day and lost concentration when he was driving.

t family gatherings he would once have played with Tommy and his cousins like the big kid he was, but now he was ­irritated by the noise and chaos. He just wasn’t himself and that worried me.

He agreed to go with me to see his GP and we told the ­doctor about the family history of Alzheimer’s, but it was hard to get anyone to take my concerns seriously because he was still so young.

It didn’t help that Ian kept insisting he was fine.

He just put the forgetfulness and loss of concentration down to stress or tiredness.

I was talking to one of his ­colleagues one day and he agreed he’d become forgetful at work too, so it wasn’t just me who’d noticed the change.

Eventually Ian was referred to hospital for tests.

The results came back – in October 2013, he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

I think I’d known in my heart of hearts what was wrong, but it was still a terrible shock. Strangely, it barely seemed to register for Ian. “Oh right, OK,” was his response.

When his mum died, the thinking was that early-onset Alzheimer’s wasn’t hereditary, but subsequent research had proved otherwise.

A nurse took Ian out of the room while the consultant asked if I understood what we’d been told.

“If it is genetic, what are the chances of our son getting it too?” I asked, terrified for Tommy, who was only four at the time.

The consultant said it was 50/50 and that we could have Tommy tested to see if he had inherited the gene.

“That needs to be Tommy’s decision when he’s older,” I said.

I was reeling from the news but it wasn’t until the next day that it really hit me, when I arrived home from the ­supermarket, put my shopping bags down, sank to the floor and sobbed for an hour.

Ian was prescribed ­medication but the consultant said this wouldn’t cure him, it would simply slow down the progression of the disease.

When I broke the news to friends and family their ­reaction was always the same.

“But he’s so young,” they’d say. “It’s nothing to do with age, it’s a disease that’s slowly eating away at his brain,” I explained.

Their comments made me realise the lack of ­understanding there is about Alzheimer’s.

Since then Ian’s ­condition has continued to deteriorate.

Almost overnight I feel as if I’ve become a single parent to two children and life seems like a very lonely place.

He can’t work and I am his full-time carer. Life is hard. Ian can’t ­remember the ­person I was when we met or all the ­wonderful things we have done together, although I show him photos and try to remind him.

I wrote out important dates, like birthdays and our wedding anniversary, and stuck them on the kitchen cupboard door to help jog his memory, but it hasn’t really worked.

Ian can’t write any more, he suffers from mood swings and a few times he’s got up in the night and wandered out of the house. On one occasion a neighbour saw him and brought him home.

He goes to a day centre three times a week, which is when I run around trying to do the shopping, cleaning and ­anything else I need to do. Sometimes I drop him off there then just sit in the car and cry.

At first Ian had some ­understanding of what was happening to him.

“Don’t let Tommy call ­anyone else ‘Daddy,’” he said one day. “Tommy’s only got one dad and that’s you,” I tried to reassure him. But as the ­disease progressed, this ­understanding slipped away.

I love Ian so much but he’s not the person I fell in love with, and that’s the hardest and cruellest thing of all.