For a long year, my father's health has been failing and he is increasingly dependent on my mother.
She, who will soon turn eighty, has internalized without having to think about it that he is the first thing in her life.
Take him to the doctor, go get the medicine, reschedule visits because on the scheduled day he doesn't feel like leaving the house, control his diet.
Whatever and whatever he can because he said it would be in sickness and in health.
And so it will be until the end.
Although he can only dedicate his strength to surviving in the best way, my father sees it and knows it, he repeats it to her children and tells her to thank her.
I couldn't stop thinking about the depth of that gratitude as I read, fascinated,
Journeys to Unimaginable Lands
.
Its author is Dasha Kiper, a medical professional dedicated to accompanying caregivers of people with Alzheimer's.
The men and women of all ages with whom this clinical psychologist works, whose cases articulate each chapter, love those they serve, but their grandparents, their parents, their partners cannot be aware of the exhausting, maddening challenge they face. They submit to those who are giving their lives to them.
“While caregivers can certainly sense the stress that dementia patients feel, patients with dementia are rarely able to get a sense of what their caregivers are experiencing.”
The unease caused by this imbalance is the subject of a book of admirable sensitivity and intelligence.
Why argue with the patient if the person suffering from dementia can no longer listen to reasons because his brain prevents him from doing so?
This situation repeats itself over and over again.
Why argue with the patient if the person suffering from dementia can no longer listen to reasons because his brain prevents him from doing so?
This situation repeats itself over and over again.
Even the author, when she was a caregiver, tried to argue the lack of meaning in the actions of the patient with whom she lived.
She was of no use.
Or she was barely any use.
The next day, again, the same situation.
And the other and the other.
No one can escape that error.
Why, even though it is counterproductive and creates situations of sadness and lack of control, there seems to be no way to avoid it?
There are few moments as dramatic as that of her son, Peter, who must shower a mother, Mary, who, because of her illness, neglects her hygiene, which has caused infections.
He tricks her into getting naked from her, she not only doesn't understand him, but she almost accuses him of wanting to abuse her or humiliates him mercilessly.
Devastated, Peter falls to the ground, screams, cries, breaks his own glasses and cuts his hands.
“What the hell are you doing?” Mary asks, bewildered.
The key to the book, which transcends the discipline and turns it into a work that thinks about the evolution of people and how the relationship with others develops throughout life, is to discover the complex territory in which the disease engulfs personality (“at what point does one self end and the other begin?”), a process for which the healthy brain is not prepared.
That is the imbalance for which there is no alternative and Kiper, in the wake of Oliver Sacks, thinks about it through his experience in the consultation, thanks to the best research and thus ends up offering us an authentic life lesson.
Look for it in your bookstore
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