But before we get into that, let me share a quick story with you...
There I was, a number of years ago, a recent college graduate with a degree in film studies and I was deciding what I wanted to do next. Life in society felt very unsettled, kind of like the way things feel right now. It was after the Vietnam War, after Watergate, and the country just felt agitated and uneasy. I did not want to live in the trappings of modern urban life. I did not want to move to a big city, I wanted to live in a place that was beautiful, inspiring, and uplifting. I moved to Wyoming, where I could be surrounded by mountains, wide open spaces, and Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks.
I started my career working in television production and producing nature documentaries and other programs. This has enabled me to travel and film spectacular wilderness, forests, creeks, wildlife, and other scenes of nature. It has been very satisfying to be able to share the beauty of nature through television programs and nature documentaries with many people who could never experience these relaxing scenes of nature in person.
But after a number of years, I did not feel like I was fulfilling my potential to really change lives with the skills I had to create beautiful video programs about nature.
Around this same time a friend of mine, Gale, became the live-in caregiver of his father, who has Alzheimer's disease. I thought about my own mother, and could imagine myself in that same situation. I wanted to be able to help my friend as he struggled with the difficult demands of caregiving. His dad easily became agitated, anxious, upset and aggressive. As you know, agitation is one of the most common behaviors that caregivers like you find difficult to understand and deal with.
Gale struggled with his father's agitation, confusion, wandering and anger. Every day Gale’s dad tried to leave the house and find his wife, who in reality had passed away five years before. “Where’s Helen? Where’s Helen!” he cried, every day. His father also resented the fact that he needed daily care and interfered with Gale's caregiving activities all day long. Their life was a typical example of the "Thirty-Six Hour Day".
I wasn’t able to help my friend, as he struggled with the difficult demands of caregiving. To make things worse, I felt terrible because like all caregivers, my friend knew that his father was suffering, and that feeling was very hard on Gale. I felt even worse about the situation because like a lot of caregivers, he tried letting his father watch television as a distraction, but found that "regular" TV, with its frantic news programs, scenes of conflict, highly emotional dramas, and crime shows just made his father more agitated.
I felt sad, because I know that there is a lot of beauty in the world and caregivers can have a lot of problems letting their loved ones with Alzheimer's experience it and feel at peace.