Many of us in the United States know someone, often in our family, who has Alzheimer disease. This debilitating disease destroys the memory functions of the brain causing disorientation and confusion in the patient. There is no cure for the disease. What is Alzheimer's disease? One answer is that it is the most common type of dementia.

My wife has Alzheimer's disease. To show you what Alzheimer's disease is to me, I took her to Utah yesterday to go to my friend's funeral. We drove eighty miles an hour for three and one-half hours and got to the church about five or ten minutes after the funeral started. Then it took another ten minutes to walk her to the chapel.

I went to the cemetery after the funeral, but had to leave my wife in the car. Then we stopped at her uncle's house which is when the trouble started. She forgot how to get into the car when it was time to leave. I'm sure I could have taught her to get in but her eighty-six-year-old uncle would not stop trying to help. His helping just confused my wife. Finally, after over an hour in the hot sun, he called his friends at the fire department and they manhandled by wife into the street, my wife screaming all the time.

I have two situations here. Alzheimer's disease and rheumatoid arthritis. She just couldn't raise her knees high enough and the rough treatment on sore legs didn't help. This morning she had trouble again, going to and coming home from church. Anyway, we stopped in the next town we stopped for gas and then at a "fast" food restaurant. I told my wife to stay in the car, not to mess with the seat belt, and not to open the door. She promised me she would not do any of those things.

Well the restaurant does not sell frozen patties and stale hamburgers so I had to wait until they were cooked. When I got back to the car my wife was tangled up in the belt and almost off the seat.

This upset me. I became very angry with myself for taking her to Utah, for going to the funeral period, and for not going to the drive-up window instead of going inside. Anyway, she calmed me down, got back in the seat somehow, and we were on our way. She did not want her cheeseburger saying she had already eaten. Actually she had nothing to eat all day. She finally drank her milk shake.

This type of confusion goes on everyday. She sees our animals long-dead, little children who I can not identify, perhaps our children when they were young, and she sees people who visit after they have left. She talks to these people all the time.

I was getting up with my wife four or five times a night. The doctor gave me some sleeping pills when I told him she had stayed up for twenty-four hours straight in a hotel in Salt Lake City. One of these pills kept her awake all night and all the next day. Since then, she has been sleeping much better (without the pills), and I only have to get up with her two or three times a night. In a way, that one pill regulated her sleep pattern. Well, at least it changed it.

She is like a little child. She does not have diapers (yet) but she wears those special panties that catch fluids and other objects. I put safety rails around the toilets so she now can get on the toilet herself. One of those extra high toilet seats was nothing but confusion to her. We tried it twice, but with the new rails, she is doing much better.

I have a care giver who comes on most week days. After a 100 day waiting period, my long-term-care company will pay for her care. I bought that insurance some years ago to protect my investments. I'm sure I will have spent those investments before too long the way things are going, and I probably didn't need protection. If the government pays for your long-term care, they will go after your assets.

I'm trying to keep my wife out of an Alzheimer's unit for as long as possible. My family is concerned about her care and the strain on me (as are our doctors). I know that what I'm saying here is true for others. Two of my close friends took care of their wives with Alzheimer's disease, one until he had to put her in a care center and the other until the day she died.

I asked them how they coped with it. One said, "One day at a time."

What is Alzheimer's disease? It is a disaster that demands everything of the patient and those taking care of the patient. Medications may show some daily benefit in the earlier stages. My wife refused to take them. When she did take them more recently, she had a seizure that put her in the hospital.

The situation now is hopeless. There are, as I said, no cures in sight. Donations for research have not so far been enough to speed up the research needed to find a cure.

I think of the many homeless people in our country. Surely some of them are in some stage of Alzheimer's disease. I can hardly think about what they are seeing and thinking and what misery has come upon them. It is bad enough when you have people around you that love you and will take care of you.

Fly Old Glory!