It's been nine months. I could have had a baby in that amount of time. It's been nine months since my husband of thirteen years, my 42 year old husband, has been diagnosed with Frontotemporal Dementia. I remember sitting in the doctors's office while the doctor went over this huge packet of test results with my husband and I. How he scored on this part and that. What it all added up to mean. Ironically enough I already knew, or close enough, since I was the one that pushed for the tests in the first place. Still, suspecting and having confirmation are two different things. But in all of the doctor's talking he didn't get around to telling my husband his final prognosis. I would get that "honor" the next day, after shock had settled a bit. No wife should have to tell her husband how long he has to live.
It's been nine months of fighting for the Social Security they don't intend to give him. Nine months of fighting with insurance companies for medicines that actuary tables say he can't have until he's 43 (that's still a month a way).
Everybody wants to know how such a young man can have such an old man affliction. War. PTSD. Toxic exposures. Contaminated Anthrax. He was fighting; now I do the fighting.
In those nine months we have tried (and did with some success) to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, News Year, Valentines, Easter, Mother's Day and Father's Day, our youngest turned 12, and our eldest graduated high school and was accepted into college. Both daughters also attended counseling to deal with their father's failing health and mental state. I tell the girls often "normal" is an illusion that most people propagate to fool those around them and more so themselves. Everybody's family has problems and issues, you just don't hear about them. Granted, our's are a bit more than some, but we don't quit. We are not the quitting kind.
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