A Train Ride allegory of Alheimzers disease..

BuffaloBob

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A Train Ride allegory of Alheimzer's disease..

A nurse at a senior living facility showed me and family members this short story of what Alzheimer's patients experience on their sad journey. Thought some of you may appreciate it.

An Alzheimer’s Allegory

THE TRAIN JOURNEY
Imagine going on a long journey by train. As we leave the landscape looks familiar and as we progress, things begin to look different. The buildings have odd shapes and the trees don’t look quite the way you remember them. Maybe it’s a different country with different architecture and plant life. It feels a bit strange even unnerving.

You decide to ask the other passengers about the strangeness you feel, but notice they seem unperturbed. You wonder if your mind is paying tricks on you. You decide to act as if everything looks all right, but because it does not, you have to be on your guard. This places you under some tension, but you believe you can tolerate it for the rest of the trip. However, out on this journey you don’t know you can’t go back or when it will end. When you ask them to tell me where the train is you find yourself becoming so preoccupied with appearing all right that you are distracted and don’t notice the passing scenery.

After some time you look out the window again and this time you know something is wrong. Everything looks strange and unfamiliar. There is no similarity to anything you can recall from the past. You think that you must do something and try to talk to the other passengers about the strangeness you feel but they look at you dumb foundered. They talk in a new language. You wonder why they are not talking in English. They look at you knowingly and with sympathy. You want to know what is going on so you keep after them trying to get them to tell you where the train is going. The only answers you get are in a strange language and then even when you talk your words sound strange to you. Now you are truly frightened.

You realize that you are going to have to got of this train and find your own way home and then you get up to leave. You don’t get very far as the other passenger’s stop you and take you back to you seat. It seems that they want you to stay on the train whether you like it or not. You try to explain but they just talk in a strange language.

You realize that you will never find your way home if you don’t get off that train. You get ready to jump when hands suddenly appear from nowhere and grab you from behind. You try to fight them off, but you feel them pulling you back onto the train. You will never get home.

How sad you feel. You did not say goodbye to you friends or you children. The passengers look sympathetic, but they do not know how sad you feel. Maybe if they knew they would let you off the train.

You have no choice now. You have to go along with the passengers because they seem to know where the journey will end. Maybe they will get you there safely. You wish that you had never started out on this journey but know you cannot go back.
 

Unicorn

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Re: A Train Ride allegory of Alheimzer's disease..

That is a very poignant story, sooooo sad.

U.
 

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BuffaloBob

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Re: A Train Ride allegory of Alheimzer's disease..

Unicorn said:
That is a very poignant story, sooooo sad. U.

Yes.
 

jharhed

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Re: A Train Ride allegory of Alheimzer's disease..

Sad, my grandmother went thru this, she lived with us for a while, she'd get out of bed asking "Where am I" and she'd say "I think I'm losing my mind, do you think I am?". How does a kid answer that? I'd just give her a hug and walk her back to the bedroom. Those days really really sucked, but she is now better off than all of us. Jhar
 

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BuffaloBob

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Re: A Train Ride allegory of Alheimzer's disease..

jharhed said:
Sad, my grandmother went thru this, she lived with us for a while, she'd get out of bed asking "Where am I" and she'd say "I think I'm losing my mind, do you think I am?". How does a kid answer that? I'd just give her a hug and walk her back to the bedroom. Those days really really sucked, but she is now better off than all of us. Jhar

Same with my grandmother. She didn't recognize me and got lost in front of her house, and folks back then just accepted old age and senility as normal. What we didn't realize was the toll this terrible journey took on her. So sad that nothing other people can do to make the end of life more comfortable for these folks.
 

Mental Granny

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Re: A Train Ride allegory of Alheimzer's disease..

So very sad It does make me cry ! Jeffs grandpa had it an his other granma she didn't know one day who Tammy an I were but, she wanted to show us something laid out on a stand table ... so we go with her to see what is so very special ...... 2 handmade mom day cards that were oh so very pretty an made with love for her by her grandson Jeffs wife and her greatgrandaughter .......... Tammy an I .....
 

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Re: A Train Ride allegory of Alheimzer's disease..

Breaks my heart, BuffaloBob, or BuffaloBill. I wanna say 'Y'all get up and wreck that f*ck*n train!
 

fossis

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Re: A Train Ride allegory of Alheimzer's disease..

It's a very sad disease, we lived with an Aunt for two & a half years, at the last she would just stand & look out the window for hours on end, other times it was comical, when she tried to make my bed with me in it. :icon_scratch:

Fossis...........
 

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BuffaloBob

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Re: A Train Ride allegory of Alheimzer's disease..

texastee2007 said:
wow you broke my heart...I know folks like this...wondering around lost in their own thoughts and mind.

Hopefully there are some new tests in the works to recognize and perhaps stop the disease before it gets this bad. :)
 

emtrescue

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Re: A Train Ride allegory of Alheimzer's disease..

I see this everyday.

My Grandfather died from this eventually "forgot" how to speak (and eat, swallow, etc.) Dad was leaving the Nursing Home one day and asked him if he needed him to bring him anything when he came back.

My Grandfather replied "A shotgun." Last words he ever spoke. You tell me they don't know somethings going on.

Hate this disease.
 

Mental Granny

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Re: A Train Ride allegory of Alheimzer's disease..

I told about Jeffs grandma but, his other grandpa to towards the end he also did not know any one except his wife, his daughter (Jeffs mom) that was it all the family were omming an going out of his room that last day at the hosp. When Tammy and a cousin who is same age as Tammy went in the room he alled the nurse over and said I want you to meet my granddaughter Tammy and my grandson Justin! What a wonderful memory for them .... that great granpa knew who they were. :)
 

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