Preventing Her Shutdown: Losing My Wife To Alzheimer's
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Preventing Her Shutdown: Losing My Wife To Alzheimer's

by Sammie MarsalliPublish: Jun 15, 2022Series: Preventing Her Shutdown From Alzheimer'sAdvice & How To Biographies & Memoirs General Nonfiction

Book Overview

Preventing Her Shutdown Losing My Wife To Alzheimer's is an inside look at what a typical ongoing caregiver husband goes through in his desperate effort to keep his wife with Alzheimer's “connected.” She is in the advanced stages, as she doesn't speak.

This book began as a daily diary of my caregiving, as my wife's b... ehavior was drastically changing daily. Writing not only alleviated my continuous sorrow, but also helped me invent therapies and activities to interact with her continuous behavioral changes.

Soon, this diary became a book, where readers will witness an ongoing caregiver successes and failures.

No one has the exact key to how to respond to Alzheimer's radical behavioral changes, as there are no two profile behavioral changes alike, not even in the same stage of the disease. There isn't a standard set of therapies to apply. Even Alzheimer's stages are different in their characteristics. Only your own experiences will be your guide. “What works for me may not work for you.”

As a result, I began to create my own therapies. Each family is on their own as caregivers with their own personalized therapies because each profile is different, which affects the way you react to and care for this person. Each profile is different, which impacts the way you react to and care for this person.

Preventing Her Shutdown details my activities and actions in real-time racing against the Alzheimer's clock to keep her connected with me and her family, even though she is always silent, in my never-ending battle as her 24/7 caregiver husband.

How do I connect with my wife and get her to connect with me? This is always my constant desperation as her caregiver, especially because she can't talk. I am always afraid she will stop connecting with me, especially when I get that “blank, lost look” in her eyes. This book describes the steps taken to avoid losing that “connection”.

In 'Preventing Her Shutdown', readers will gain insight into the intuitive decisions I have made and the diverse therapies I have devised. The continuous search for opportunities to stimulate interaction and establish a connection with her alleviates my greatest apprehension of a shutdown.

Exposed in this book is my most complicated challenge as her caregiver husband:

How do we communicate?
How do I talk to her?
How does she tell me what she wants or needs?
What therapy and activity can I create?

Discover in Preventing Her Shutdown how we learned to “connect” with each other and communicate even though she doesn't speak. Readers will learn how she now silently “reaches out on her own'' to connect with me.

Preventing Her Shutdown exposes emotional demands as her caregiver husband. Very personal, unloaded emotions are unloaded and never confided to anyone as being too personal.

“What is she thinking or feeling, now that she is unable to speak a word?” I only have some facial expressions or sounds.

“Is she happy? Is she sad”?
“Sometimes I see a sad or lost face.”
“Does she know she is not well”?
“Does she know how she was before”?
“Does she remember her past”?

Then I realized “What about us”, our 44 years of marriage, does she remember that past? She recognizes and knows me well, but how far back? Did our marriage begin in 1979 or 2017, when she was diagnosed? I am not sure where I was in her memory or how she sees me as her friend, husband or simply a caregiver.

In Preventing her Shutdown, discover how her caregiver husband, married for 44 years, manages this emotional roller coaster successfully and unsuccessfully, sometimes with tremendous personal emotional impact.

This book is an essential read for anyone dealing with the struggles of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's.
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      • Sammie Marsalli Sammie Marsalli 9 months ago
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      • This book began as a daily diary, noting my wife's behavior and my reactions. This helped me ventilate my sorrow and taught me how to react to her changes and her needs as her caregiver. My “ghost friend” was the laptop screen. Outside professional help just doesn't work because there are no two behavioral reactions to Alzheimer's exactly alike. There is no guide to be followed. I am an ordinary husband and amateur caregiver on my own, inventing and creating ways to keep my wife interactive. I wanted to share these efforts with other amateur caregivers who are going through the same journey alone with their loved ones.
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      • Sammie Marsalli Sammie Marsalli 9 months ago
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      • I am constantly taking notes and writing about her behaviors, daily events, and my reactions. I take notes as things happen, so I can easily remember how I felt and how I acted. It is easy to remember feelings in general terms, such as happiness, sadness, etc., but not the thought process that went on during those emotions in detail. This is why I am always writing in real time. It helps me justify or correct my decisions for the next day as her caregiver.
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      • Sammie Marsalli Sammie Marsalli 9 months ago
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      • The image of the candle recently flickering and now smoking shows that light is slowly disappearing, just like Alzheimer's slowly shuts down life.
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      • Sammie Marsalli Sammie Marsalli 9 months ago
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      • The title Preventing Her Shutdown represents my desperate caregiving efforts to keep my wife active, mobile, and avoid a vegetative state. The subtitle, Losing My Wife To Alzheimer's, acknowledges my futile attempts to fight for her life. At the moment, no other title reflects the content of this book as clearly as this one does.
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      • Sammie Marsalli Sammie Marsalli 9 months ago
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      • Chapter 31, “My Dream Comes True,” was my favorite moment as I described how I was able to dance with my wife at my son's wedding, the greatest thrill of my life. Chapter 7, “Slipping Into Oblivion,” and Chapter 20, “Blank Looks,” were the saddest moments of my writing, as these chapters describe how we were unable to connect with each other because she was unable to identify me. Connecting is a must for all caregivers of Alzheimer's
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Preventing Her Shutdown From Alzheimer's complete series

(68) $7.99 kindle Free with KUeBook, Paperback,
Preventing Her Shutdown: Losing My Wife To Alzheimer'sby Sammie MarsalliPublish: Jun 15, 2022Series: Preventing Her Shutdown From Alzheimer'sAdvice & How To Biographies & Memoirs General Nonfiction
62 Tips For Caregivers Of Alzheimer's To Delay Shutdown
(10) $4.99 kindle Free with KUeBook, Paperback,
62 Tips For Caregivers Of Alzheimer's To Delay Shutdownby Sammie MarsalliPublish: May 23, 2023Series: Preventing Her Shutdown From Alzheimer'sAdvice & How To Biographies & Memoirs General Nonfiction
(11) $4.99 kindle Free with KUeBook, Paperback,
Holding On To Her Identity: Losing My Wife To Alzheimer'sby Sammie MarsalliPublish: Sep 28, 2024Series: Preventing Her Shutdown From Alzheimer'sAdvice & How To Biographies & Memoirs General Nonfiction
Advice & How To Biographies & Memoirs General Nonfiction

BIOGRAPHY
As an Alzheimer's Home Caregiver, I strive to provide valuable information by sharing personal experiences, to help Alzheimer's home caregivers of loved ones. Unforeseen “highs and lows” of my journey are shared. My mission is to offer support, and empower our readers with prevention strategies and caregiving tips.... r>
Home care without outside help is difficult, but usually, there is no other option. When behavioral changes and emergency events happen, professional help cannot respond in “Real-time.” Only home caregivers can at that very moment with their only tool, “Intuition.”

As an author, I am certainly not an expert or an authority on Alzheimer's. I am definitely not a professional author and didn't pretend to write an authoritative masterpiece. I never pretended to be any one of those things. I am simply an ordinary “John Doe” 24/7 Alzheimer's caregiver, husband, sharing my experiences, reactions, and inventing therapies while caring for my wife at home with Alzheimer's. We have been married 44 years, 3 kids now grown up, a great dog most of those years, a typical family on our own, trying to hold on to my wife and avoid her shutdown.

Hospice home care for a loved one with Alzheimer's begins on the very first day it is diagnosed. This home care without any outside help is extremely difficult, but usually, there is no other option. Outside professional help cannot respond “in real time” when unforeseen events occur. Only home caregivers can do it at that very moment. No one has the exact key as to how to respond to these changes, as there are no two profile behavioral changes alike in the same stage of the disease.

There isn't a set therapy, as each stage of Alzheimer's varies in its characteristics. Only your experiences can be your guide. “What works for me may not work for you.”

As a result, I began to invent my own home activities and therapies. Family home caregivers find themselves alone, inventing their own home care to mitigate behavioral changes and needs.

I realize there are other Alzheimer’s home caregivers like me, “amateur”, trying to take care of a loved one with Alzheimer's. Like everyone, I was learning the hard way by trial and error to mitigate tremendous changes in behavior with my wife when they were happening.

As Alzheimer's home caregivers, we will sacrifice whatever it takes, suspend any activity we enjoy, ignore our necessities, and neglect our health to prevent our loved ones from “shutting down.” Whether we can see it or not, we know in their own way, our loved ones are just trying to live.

Hopefully, my books, written in real-time, become a shortcut for Alzheimer’s caregivers, to avoid some of the desperation, frustration, and sadness on their tortuous caregiving journey.

You are welcome to explore more insights and how I respond to behavioral changes and a “look inside the life” as an Alzheimer’s home caregiver for my wife.
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Sammie Marsalli other Books

(11) $4.99 kindle Free with KUeBook, Paperback,
Holding On To Her Identity: Losing My Wife To Alzheimer'sby Sammie MarsalliPublish: Sep 28, 2024Series: Preventing Her Shutdown From Alzheimer'sAdvice & How To Biographies & Memoirs General Nonfiction
62 Tips For Caregivers Of Alzheimer's To Delay Shutdown
(10) $4.99 kindle Free with KUeBook, Paperback,
62 Tips For Caregivers Of Alzheimer's To Delay Shutdownby Sammie MarsalliPublish: May 23, 2023Series: Preventing Her Shutdown From Alzheimer'sAdvice & How To Biographies & Memoirs General Nonfiction
Book Detail
Title Preventing Her Shutdown: Losing My Wife To Alzheimer's
Series Preventing Her Shutdown From Alzheimer's
Author Sammie Marsalli
ASIN B0B48L87XV
Publish Date 15, Jun 2022
Publisher Amazon
Language English
Page Count 196
Cover Design Amazon