Hello to all you that are caregivers, even if it's part time or full time it is hard to deal with at times.

This is how I became aware of help for those that cared for the ones with neuro problems. I did a search, MGH came up first, so I checked it out.

My MIL has Alzheimers Disease and we, as in my husband and myself have been trying to learn how to cope with this as well as help MIL to adjust and sometimes that was on a constant base.

I saw a Alzheimer's Chat, I entered the room and that is where I stayed for years, until BT started making changes.

There were about 10 to 12 people there that night, male and female. We were all trying to learn to cope. We met as often as possible, but we could leave notes if we didn't find someone until later.

This dozen or so people stuck together, shared what we had learned doing research as well as shared the different aspects of this horrible disease. I will continue this later. a span of 10 years, well it could get quiet long.

I thought some would like to hear from others how they coped with their LO,s as things progessed. will continue latter. Jo

Hello caregivers. Hope all are well and your LO is doing as well as possible.

After thinking on this over night I decided I would not post how a dozen caregivers managed at least 10 years.

I will say we were on our own, no help for the weary. We shared many tears and also managed some laughs. As time went on we started losing our LO's, one by one. Each death felt like our own family. It always hit home, :"we were heading there".

I can't tell how valuable the talking, sharing and caring for each other . We will fast forward. When the Classic chat closed forever, we kind of got seperated. We were down to 2, MIL being one of those 2. We still have MIL but she is only existing. She hasn't known us for years, but we still do as much of the "hands on" caring we can. She is now in a Nursing Home and we haven't forgotten who SHE is!

BTW, one of the girls in the group of Alzheimer's caregivers wrote a book on the passing of time. The last I heard from her she had left it to some publishers. I hope she has had good luck with the publishing.

My purpose for being here at BT2 is to help others if I can and on the other side of that coin,find help for myself. I also have neuro problems. It has been helpful to have so many people to learn from.

Dr. Grohol has a wealth of information here on his sites. Right there for the learning. I thank him and do appreciate his love and devotion to his work here.
thanks to all, Jo