From 2009-2015 I worked at writing a novel. In that time I managed to complete drafts of sixteen chapters. Not many for six years, but the writing group I belonged to encouraged me.

Then I ran into a writer’s block.

I’d never written fiction and hadn’t a clue where I was going with the book I’d finally titled But Why? What I wrote during that time seemed more like journal entries, a diary maybe, that began when my protagonist, Isabelle, was nine. Though fiction, my book-to-be doesn’t read that way. No conflict, no tension, no real plot. Stymied, I quit and decided to try writing a blog, my first. “Wherever you go, there you are”  attracted readers, plus a number of repostings on the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop site.

There was another block too, a big one. It lurked behind dementia’s sweeping skirts. During the years I’d tried to write about Isabelle’s innocence, I acknowledged what I’d known all along—my  husband’s dementia diagnosis was actually Alzheimer’s disease (ALZ).

I began to stumble along a twisted path studded with potholes, hairpin curves and detours. Writing a novel, or writing anything at all, was no longer a priority. In fact nothing was prioritized except Peter. He was, and is, priority one. That previous sentence makes me sound as if I’m Clara Barton and Mother Theresa rolled into one. I am not. I’m short-tempered, frustrated, exhausted, confused, stressed, sad and angry a lot of the time, sometimes all at the same time.

What about an Alzheimer’s conflict in my novel-to-be? Why not?

When I accepted that Peter had ALZ, I felt as helpless as a leaf blowing helter-skelter in a storm. Writing and finding the right words is my therapy. Would another blog help? That thought morphed into this blog. The writing has helped me, and my words have helped others I’ve heard.

From the beginning of this long awful trip I read everything I could find on the types of dementia. Dementia isn’t a gentler type of Alzheimer’s. No, dementia is an umbrella word that covers several diseases, Alzheimer’s the most widely known of all of them. That’s noteworthy because ALZ, while not contagious, is an epidemic, the sixth leading killer in this country after heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, accidents and stroke. Of these, Alzheimer’s has no cure.

ALZ affects families in ways that other killer diseases do not. The loved one’s life is a chiaroscuro of lights and darks, sun and shadow, instant transformations from the former self to the self that is, in that moment.  There are drugs that can help—namely Namenda and Aricept—and various prompts to make daily life more tolerable for patient and caregiver: increase exercise, do crosswords, eat right, get enough sleep but not too much, call-the-doctor-in-the-morning, eat-an-apple-a-day, cross your fingers.

What works best for us is laughter, always the best medicine. Admittedly, it is extremely difficult, if not downright impossible sometimes, to find a reason to laugh. Luckily for us, Peter’s sense of humor hasn’t deserted him…yet. When I visited one day I set out a 100-piece jigsaw. We fiddled with this piece and that in the mostly red, black and yellow puzzle. Peter chortled when, predictably, clumsy me knocked the sorted piles to the floor.

“A place beyond words: the literature of Alzheimer’s” is an excellent piece by Stefan Merrill Block, The New Yorker, 8/20/14. The article both jolted and vindicated me in ways other books and articles I’ve read on the subject have not. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/place-beyond-words-literature-alzheimers

Header: Me stealing time to write early in the morning 

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.