Moving Between Two Worlds

This is the forgetting. I opened the cab door and I stormed off into the streets of Manhattan with my back. And then Connor goes... Oh, my God, he's in New York. So then the phone rings, and my wife is on the phone saying, Oh, how's Daddy? Where is he? And Connor goes, He's lost in Manhattan. What? I know he has no filters now. I know that in order to function, I must go into his world and believe what he says. And it took me a while to...

to figure it out. And in my anger, I picked up my right leg and crashed it as hard as I could down on the coffee table, which has a glass top. I hit the coffee table so hard that it split this quarter-inch glass and cut right through my jeans, and it wasn't real.

From Argo Studios in New York City, this is The Forgetting, a podcast about dementia. I'm David Shank, author of the book, The Forgetting, and senior advisor to an international research consortium called Cure Alzheimer's Fund. which helps make this podcast possible. And with me, as always, I couldn't do it without him, really, is my friend and co-host. Seriously, Clark?

You're not supposed to interrupt there, Greg. You're supposed to let me finish this sentence. Maybe I could do it without him. Maybe I could. Maybe I should try. My good friend and co-host Greg O'Brien, author of On Pluto, Inside the Mind of Alzheimer's. His book has that subtitle because Greg has early onset Alzheimer's, and he is committed, really committed, to reporting his experience for as long as he possibly can.

That's why this podcast exists. Hey, Greg. How you doing, buddy? Good. Good to see you. Usually we're not in the same room. No, this is a rare treat. We're all in New York City together. I kind of think of it as Clark Kent and Superman, never in the same place. Right. So which one are you? Well, can I be both? Because they're both cool.

Can you just be like Jimmy the... I was the newspaper guy. Well, yeah, the photographer, Jimmy Olsen. Jimmy Olsen, yeah. I could do that, yeah. Or you could be the boss. You could be... Oh, don't call me. The editor. And we have a very, very, very, very special guest coming up in just a few minutes. We're going to abbreviate our normal Greg David talk because our guest is so special and is also here with us. And it's going to be a surprise. I'm not even going to say her name.

But this is a rare treat because Greg and I are normally in two different cities, and it's always fun to talk to you in any format, Greg, but it's nice to see your face, and we even got to have breakfast together. You made me pick up the tab. And you incredibly rudely paid while I was doing something, and I cursed at you for that. But I wasn't so upset that I, you know...

went and grabbed your credit card or paid you back or anything. I still let you do it. And let's talk for just a minute about where you just were, because last time we spoke, we had just lost. Trish Radenberg, and you went down, you were good friends with Trish, and you're good friends with George, and you went down and were a real part of the memorial service.

So tell us what that was like. They had a couple hundred people at a historic synagogue near Capitol Hill. And, you know, speaking there, they had... senators and congressmen. Nancy Pelosi spoke, Senator Ed Markey spoke, and others, and then they had video tributes. It was just an extraordinary send-off, and it was funny because...

Trish was a comedy writer, and she wrote for sitcoms, and she was an incredible writer. But it was moving, so it was almost the cycle in Alzheimer's where you go from... laughter to tears to confusion to laughter to tears and it was an honor to be there and I was Connor was with me so and yet you're still you still come into this little radio studio and you

And you bless us with your presence. Are you fishing for a compliment? No, I'm trying to do like a reverse tease where you're so important now and yet you still... Or with us. Yeah, no. I didn't get that, but that's okay. That's a joke. It was a joke. Oh, you told me you're not supposed to say it's a joke because then it's not a joke. Right. Well, you really ruin the joke if you have to say it's a joke.

which I do all the time with my family, and it ruins it. It was never good to begin with, but it just gets worse when I have to say, no, it's a joke. Okay. End of banter. Okay.

Let's bring in our special guest. Gloria Claiborne is here. She is the wife of the legendary jazz and blues pianist. Can I say jazz and blues pianist? Junior Mance.

who has had Alzheimer's for some time now, and Gloria is junior's wife and caregiver, and we've recently gotten to know her, and there's a... i think a really fascinating documentary being made about her and they're also here filming this conversation and when i found out about the film i offered to assist by making a few introductions and one thing led to another and i

I thought it would be really interesting for Gloria to come in to talk to Greg and to myself about her experience. So thank you, Gloria, for taking the time. And thanks for the invitation. This is very emotional for me.

We don't shy away from emotion here, so I hope it's not overwhelming, but please be as emotional. Emote at will. It's been said that, just for background, I... maternal grandfather and my mother and my father and my uncle all died of Alzheimer's and a couple years ago I was diagnosed and after two serious head injuries so but it's it's been said that

And I was the caregiver, family caregiver for my mother, and now I'm the patient. But it's been said that when one person in the family has Alzheimer's, the entire family has it. is a caregiver. It's wrenching about your husband and also wrenching for you. They say that caregivers need care too. I mean, you must be going through an awful lot. Normally I'm not very emotional. And I think...

I know I need to sit on my emotions to be a caregiver. Oh, right. Okay. And Junior was fine. It was not until 85 when he had the stroke. that left him with cognitive impairment and that within itself was a big, big adjustment because this man could still play as he did before the stroke. And in my years of education, I've always taken notes on my students so I can figure out what makes them tick. I decided five years ago it would be five years June 21st.

I need to take notes on him each day in order to find out when he would plateau after the stroke and then began to watch this downhill climb. But I also knew at the time that cognitive impairment normally would begin the onset of dementia. With that knowledge and the fact that I had already noticed short-term memory loss,

Now I'm thinking, oh, gosh, we have three things going on in the head. And the stroke also left him with aphasia. I think that's the pronunciation. So now I'm thinking, oh, gosh. We have four things going on. Information is all over his head, which he cannot retrieve. The cognitive impairment piece means he will not always process. And then I knew it was even more important to take notes. And then I realized I was about two, three days, two weeks, whatever, from depression. That December of...

five years ago. Your own depression, you mean? Yes. Because I had become so involved in his world and knowing that I... could move him back to where he was before the stroke. And it was at this point that my daughter said to me that December, Mom, no one had a good time. Everyone was walking around on eggshells. You did not laugh the entire time we were here. And I woke up that the first of the year, and I realized I could not laugh, could not. So I walked the dogs.

Every morning, in one block, I would walk as who I had become. The second block, I would fake this laugh. You can do that in New York City at 6. No one pays any attention. You don't even get a head turn. Yeah, so I did this for about a month, and at that point I realized I could laugh again.

But Greg, you made a comment, and moving forward, when this disease takes a part of your way, you lose all filters. Junior is the most remarkable man. Let's forget about the jazz piece because I was in love with his music when I was married to husband number one. We used to go see him perform at the top of the gate. But he basically has no filters at this point. Very common. But I have learned over the last four years. I use this phrase.

I live with dementia. I don't have it, but I live with it. Because by tracking his behavior, I know he has no filters now. I know that in order to function, I must go into his world and believe what he says. And it took me a while to... to figure it out because I realized what would I feel like if I can see you but I don't know what's going on.

So I try to mentally put myself in a place in which I see all of this stuff going on, but I know nothing. And that's the way I function with him. I function in his world. There's someone who always lives with us. There's always someone. There's a man who lives in the bathroom. And I still cannot understand. But it's his world. How can you have an accident? But you're not aware it was you who wet yourself. It's the man who lives in the shower. And I always say, oh, sweetheart, you know what?

That man, you know, that man that lives in the shower, guess what? He pissed on you. Why don't we take a shower now? Because now I'm living in his world. So he gets in the shower. Because he doesn't want the other man's pee on him. So I live in these two worlds. And like the other day, we went out to dinner. And for my birthday, it was Monday.

We're singing happy birthday, my granddaughter. And he tells me, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear dummy. Well, the whole filter thing, and David and I were talking about it. And I want to talk to you. And it's tough on my wife. We're married 40 years. I can sit here and have a conversation, but there are times when the... Light in the brain goes off and I go into tremendous rage. And it's a Tourette of swears and four-letter words that I should be turned into a pillar of salt.

And the other day, this was a week ago, I was telling David, I'm in the bedroom and I'm wrestling with something and screaming blasphemous things at the top of my lungs. And Mary Catherine comes in and she goes, What's the matter? And I said, I can't put my damn shirt on. I couldn't figure out. This was a week and a half ago how to put my shirt on. And I had...

And I don't have feelings in parts of my hands and feet now, so I have trouble buttoning. But this wasn't a button, this was a pullover. And I had my head in the sleeve. And you've got to kind of laugh. I look like a bank robber putting a mask over my head. But I was screaming. And so she gently, because she learned to be in my world, took it off. unfolded it and then gave it back to me. Three nights later, and I want to ask about...

Your husband, I see things a lot of times that aren't there, and it's hallucinations, like the man in the shower. My mom, who died of Alzheimer's, would see the floor open and people in it. And I see at times these spiders creeping along the wall at me and then dropping down. And my mom taught me to brush them away. Well, a week ago, I'm lying on the couch.

And I'm sleeping, and I sleep on the couch because I have no feeling in my feet and part of my legs, so I push against the bottom of the couch to feel pressure. And I woke up, and at the corner of the coffee table, there's this... horrific, scary, green demon, very small, staring at me. So I say, okay, it's not real. So I brush it away. Goes away, it comes back. Goes away, and it comes back.

goes away, and it comes back. And now I'm saying, shit, it's real. And now I'm terrified. And then I moved from terrified to anger. And in my anger, I picked up my right leg. lifted it up over it, and crashed it as hard as I could down on the coffee table, which has a glass top. I hit the coffee table so hard that it split this quarter inch glass. and cut right through my jeans, and it wasn't real. And it's just that you, like the man in the shower, you get, your brain tells you.

There's a demon there. With Junior, his brain is telling him there's a guy in the shower. And it's true. There is a guy in the shower. And I constantly live in his world.

One night this week, he had a visitor last week. She left at 8.30, and he hallucinates all the time. And I knew, changing his world that tiny bit. Either I would have a tough night with him or the caregiver would the next day. He spent all night up because he had to entertain. the people in the living room, and every two or three hours he would come back and give me an update as to what the conversation was about.

And I would say, oh, sweetheart, that's good. I'm so glad that you will stay up and talk to our visitors. When you're finished, you can come back and give me another update. I'm blessed with the fact that you can wake me. I can have a conversation with you and fall back to sleep. But he does this all night. And finally at 5.30, he comes back, which would have been his typical to bed time when he was on the road. He said, you know what, babe?

Everyone has left, so I think I'll lie down and take a nap. I said, sweetheart, that sounds good. I'm so glad you entertained them all night because I have work today. But it's not easy. It's not easy to go between these two worlds. But I'm determined that I will never, never place them in a home unless they become medically unsafe.

to have him home. But no, he hallucinates. He's very delusional. Who's taking care of him right now? I have a caregiver who comes in every day. Someone you trust. I trust. talk and text at least two or three times a day. When he's very agitated, that's the time I've learned. Do not try to engage in a conversation. You must treat this rage as a kid who is having a temper tantrum. You know how you just let them lie on the floor and kick and yell and scream?

And finally, you, when they begin to calm down, you will say, I love the way you are calmer now. Sometimes I know to give him time to go off and take a walk. It took me a while to make my caregiver aware. When he's enraged, do not try to reason with him. It's like a toddler. You do not reason with a toddler. You're childish. I was telling David...

coming from D.C., Trish Bradenberg's memorial service. And these kind of things are difficult for me because it just drains me. And I don't go alone anymore. My son, Connor, and he drives and all this. So we took a train up. to New York and got in a cab. And what I understood from Connor is the hotel, the Broadway Plaza was like two miles away. So this guy's driving like five miles.

And so now there's a paranoia with this disease where you think I'm saying, is he going to take us? This is stupid to say, but I'm just going to say, is he going to take us down an alley? We're going to get robbed. And now I'm like. Starting to go off. And now I'm dropping F-bombs. Inappropriate. Yelling at him and dropping F-bombs at him. The poor guy. I ended up giving him later. Connor gave him a huge tip.

We're going down Broadway, and I guess it's all segmented now, and you can't in the old days, because I grew up in this area, you could just go down Broadway. Now you can't. And so he couldn't figure it out. So finally, I got so, so upset. I'm at the highest, the strongest DEFCON possible. Connor's in the cab. And I said, fuck this. I opened the cab door.

And I stormed off into the streets of Manhattan with my back. Always a good plan. Always a good plan. And Connor, because they're trained, like, okay, let him go, because that's what they would do. And then Connor goes, Oh, my God, he's in New York. So then the phone rings, and my wife is on the phone saying, Oh, how's Daddy? Where is he? And Connor goes, He's lost in Manhattan. What? He stormed away.

And so now she's calling me and I know they're, and I'm pissed. I'm not going to talk to anyone. And, and then I was so enraged. I wanted someone to come up and mug me. and then i want to look him in the eye because i was so angry and to tell him this isn't going to be a very good day for you because i would just beat the out of him and then finally after asking 10 people like a blind man

They pointed me at the Hotel Connors waiting there. My wife is on the phone. It was like, oh, my God. It was like – but, yeah. So, Gloria, my question for you is there –

There must have been a moment, I mean maybe you don't remember exactly when it was, where you decided it was smarter for you to be in his world than to try to... keep him in your world, if that makes sense. Not correct him. There's no guy in the shower. It's just you and me here. Do you remember when that was or how you made that decision or realization or did someone help you understand that that's...

That's what a caregiver does at a certain point. It just came to you. It came to me when I realized I could not laugh because I know when you cannot laugh. You're probably about two or three weeks from depression. And then I decide, okay, you walk yourself out of depression. Now, how do you plan to deal with this disease? You have all of these notes. So I decided to try to be him. How would I feel? Blank out everything in your world.

What would you feel like if you see this, but you're not sure what is going on? And because of the short-term memory loss, I knew I had to make his world secure. So I started with the notes, where I would be, what time I would return. And then I made sure I'm home because now I can secure his world. Because if you... Imagine you don't know what's going on. You're very insecure. You've been abducted by space aliens. So I, for five years, his world is very secure.

Keeping everything the same so that I always say I was trying to condition his body and mind. And at the same time, I realized, OK, he's my toddler. So do. with him what you do with the toddler. I guess 32 years in the classroom. Maybe I had the upper hand majoring in child psychology.

You've got all these instincts from your training and they kicked in and you tried this. It sounds like you had this idea for an experiment based on your training and it's worked for you. You're creating your own little caregiving. School ethos. Now that you say that, I guess I do because I analyze constantly what the behavior is. How do I approach this new change in his life?

How do I take care of myself? And the only way to take care of myself is to learn to adapt to the changes in his head that's going on because I see this as... slowly sectioning of the brain dies. I know that's not the medical way, but it's sections. So I need to always make these adjustments. My last adjustment took me two years to figure out why can this man tell time? Because music has to do with time. Two years to figure out.

Why can he tell time? But he has never known the days of the week in five years. So now I have this information. I can make him aware of time. Now, he's more advanced. I know he's in the last stages of dementia. So it's constantly, and what you do, Greg, is fabulous, it's constantly... looking at what's going on with the brain and analyzing how do we make adjustments to keep the loved one happy.

and not insult their intelligence. And then they're happy. He's happy 80% of the time. I know he doesn't like it. That's a good figure. I live in his world. I know don't change anything in the apartment if he truly believes we had company all night, Wednesday night. Guess what? We did have company.

Recently, we went through a whole thing of trying to analyze why you have an accident during the day, but you have no accidents in the bed because he still sleeps with me. And people say, he still sleeps with you? Right. Yes. Then I realized it was not that the brain was not giving him the signal during the day.

He could get to the bathroom because I realized I needed to leave the light on in the bathroom all the time because the mind wasn't giving him the information to flip the light on before he uses. the bathroom. I know I realized I need to keep the toilet seat up all the time because the mind doesn't make him aware to lift the toilet seat.

To have the toilet seat up all the time. Would you tell that to my wife when you get a chance? It drives me, believe me, it drives me up a wall. But I need to figure out which is easier, to clean up urine all day. Yeah. Or leave the toilet seat up. Leave the toilet seat up. Right. But two weeks ago, I said, oh, gosh. Now his brain doesn't inform him how to untie the string in his Adidas.

So I took all of the strings out and re-threaded them with elastic. Now all he needs to do is go in, pull down the pants, the underwear, and go to the bathroom. I have an incontinence problem.

My mind will not tell me when it's time to pee. So I won't wear dark pants, but I wear jeans a lot. Sometimes I get wet. It's holy. humiliating and embarrassing but like you were just saying which is so refreshing to hear the caregivers trying to live in the world I'm in an I'm 67 so earlier stage than your husband, but I have to learn to live in that world. And it's very, excuse me, it is emotional, but very difficult.

as an adult and you're acting like a child to stand there with wet pants. And sometimes I don't have a choice because I can't change the pants and I just have to be in that world. And I just tell someone I'm with, I'm sorry I had an accident. And people are generally okay with that. But it's just, you want to cry, or you want to kill yourself.

I deal with depression. I tried that once, and God said, that's not your place. And so it's about making adjustments. It's like, who's going to show up today? And as a caregiver, you're saying that. And I say that often to myself. When is this thing going to go freaking haywire? When am I going to hop out of the cab and just say, screw it. Because I have no...

No sense. And God bless, you know, I want to give you a big hug, but we're across the table right now. But Greg, you know what I find to be... You are so aware. Junior is not aware at all. So it doesn't... That part doesn't... bother him. No, he's not aware. And that's a blessing in a way. According to his doctors, it's a blessing that he's not aware because he probably would become very, very angry. Some days...

We're just flying in from Europe. Sometimes we're, because he still performs. Some days, last week we were in bed, and he said, you know what, this ship is a really nice ship. It's very smooth. I said, you know what? It surely is. But it's time for us to fall asleep because we have an early flight tomorrow morning because the ship is going to dock. Wow. You've got quite the fantasy life going on in that apartment. And we have.

Flight. On the performing, just for a minute, I think it's important for people to see. I've gotten to know the Glen Campbell family, and Glen is in a tougher situation, but he was able to play. You know, it's like playing from your soul, the music. I can still write. I may not be able to find the bathroom, but I can still write. Tell me about your husband and performing and how that has worked.

Junior can still play, but I knew based on notes and more notes that last April I would officially retire him from the public. because the mind had gotten to a point that he could begin a song and he would stay in that track. I call it a track. You just repeat the same thing, and you cannot move to the left or to the right. Conversations that got into a point, they will go into a track, and this may go on for 15 or 20 minutes.

And I wanted him to go out on the top of his game. So I knew if the camera is rolling, he's going to be on a high. And he was fabulous when he performed. April 16, 2016. Fabulous. But he can no longer do that. He can begin a song, but he can never... Now play from the beginning to the end. But what is amazing, talking about music, this man can sit.

And jazz is played all day in the apartment. When you wake up, you use the bathroom, you turn on XM radio. This is the routine bathroom, XM radio, so you can listen to jazz all day. But this man... can identify songs by names, and he can identify musicians. Does he listen to himself? Do you play his own records? Yes, but... Or is that not a...

Occasionally he doesn't know. He may hear a pianist. Occasionally he thinks he's performing. But he can name the songs. And the musicians, I'm thinking, what? And I'm thinking, you don't know. who the musician is. I'm constantly checking to see if he really does. But the music is there. It's in his heart. Yeah. It's part of who he is. And without the music, he would be a shell. That's what keeps him moving is the music. But he, talk about the brain. This is intimate.

but it's true. His sexual drive is still there. Maybe once every, if I look at my notes, I will say it shows up about every... Six, seven months. Well, that's real. Now, would you tell that to my wife, too? Yeah. I mean, I won't be intimate to that point. No, no, I was kidding. But it's there. So we cuddle the whole bit. But how can this, you know, everything else is all over the place. But somewhere that part of the brain.

that once the intimacy is there, is still there. And I deal with the disease because I know who he was. The person I see now is not who. He looks like the person, but that's not who I married 19 years ago. So I kind of laugh. I mean, when he's upset, okay, he's upset. I probably would be also. If he has an accident, I look at it. Okay, so he had an accident today. It's better than to have the accident in the bathroom than in the bed. If I have to choose.

the lesser of the two evils. Where do I want the accent to be? In the bathroom versus in bed. I've mastered things like how to shower, shave, and give him a haircut. I can do this in 15 minutes because I have everything set and ready to go. One, two, three. Shower, shave, haircut. Right. I could have been upset Saturday night. I went out, and I came in at 10. I walked the dog, and I have this trick that I do.

I give him the toothbrush to brush as he sits because now you must go to the bathroom to rinse. This way... He will use the bathroom because if I say, sweetheart, you really need to use the bathroom now, don't tell me what to do. I say, okay, I won't tell you what to do, but I will maneuver this bathroom break. But he goes to the bathroom. He rinses, but he would not use the bathroom. I'm in bed at 10.30, quarter to 11. Gloria, Gloria. Yes, we are. Yeah, I want.

I'm wet. What do you mean you're wet? You know that person? Yeah, yeah. He came into the room and he has me wet. Sure enough, he's wet. It's obvious he sat down. The brain did not send the message. And he sat there and he wet on himself. So I said, oh, gosh, you know what, this guy, I cannot even stand the guy.

So I said, let's go to the bathroom. So he goes, and I give him a shower, shave, and a haircut, 15 minutes, and he's ready for bed. I mean, sometimes we cannot eat in the living room because...

Those people that are in there said we could not eat in the living room. I said, you know what, that's fine with me. We'll eat in the back, and I will put their asses out. You are? Yes, indeed. I mean, one day he had a... big fight with these guys and when I came in his knuckles were bloody they were not oh I see the blood why don't you wash your hands but he was telling me about this fight

He beat the shit out of them. Da-da, da-da. There was blood all over his hands. I'm so glad you did. At least they're gone. Was he a fighter, by the way, earlier? Could he... Did he do that in his earlier life? He's a black belt. Oh, he's a tough guy. Second degree black belt. But in his head, he beat the shit out of the guys.

He threw them out. His hands were still bloody, so we washed his hands, and he no longer had bloody hands. So you made me think of something. It sounds like you do, and my wife is starting to do this with me. You rearranged the bathroom. The other day, this was like four weeks ago, brushing my teeth, I reached for my razor. And I put it up to my mouth and...

There was something that said, this is not a good idea. And then I worried about the day when I think it's a good idea. So I told my wife, and she now... Now she hides the razor. So now I get pissed off. Where the fuck are the razors? So it sounds like you've had to childproof, so to speak, the bathroom, or do you leave stuff out, or how do you do that?

The medicine cabinet stays closed all the time. The only thing he can pick up is his brush, which is in a cup, and the toothpaste. Yeah, that's smart. The shaving gel stays in the shower. There's no raises because he used to think... And there's a guy in the shower, so he's not going to go there. Because he used to think the aftershave was the toothpaste. And I'm thinking, oh gosh.

He doesn't even know the difference. Today he saw the black fan, and he wanted to know, why did I have the black fan plugged in in the bathroom? He wasn't even aware that it was a fan. He thought it was a pan. And I'm using the pan, I guess, to make breakfast. And I said, oh, gosh, there's another piece that is beginning to die. My wife recently took away the rubbing alcohol because I picked it up one day. I looked at it. My brain said it was mouthwash.

David knows a story. It didn't have that thin, many taste. And I swallowed it and screamed. And then she came in, and so it's been now labeled rubbing alcohol. And again... childproofing put in the back of the closet where I can't find it and I yell at her where's the freaking rubbing alcohol now you're not gonna drink it I told Greg

We were talking about this at breakfast. I said there should just be a bathroom that just has a toothbrush and toothpaste and nothing else in the entire bathroom. And then the other night, the other morning, I get up. walking around the house like your husband, because I don't sleep a lot. And I'm in this room. I peed on myself. I didn't know where I was. At 4 o'clock in the morning...

I call my wife because I use my cell phone as a... What's that called? Like a walkie-talkie or a nightlight. Nightlight. I woke her up at 4 o'clock in the morning. I said, I don't know where I am. And she's...

I'm in the bathroom next to the bed. And she screams, what? And she's all up. You wake someone up in the middle of the night. And... you know finally she could hear my voice talking to her because she raised her voice at me i raised my and then she she opens the door and i'm sitting there urine all over my pants and um She goes, you're home, Greg. We're right here. She took me back to bed. There are days in which he doesn't know me. Right. He doesn't always know who I am. Yeah.

And that's going to get worse. Are you prepared? You've mastered a certain time period of the disease. Do you feel like you're prepared for when? It even gets worse in your... Oh, yeah. Because I know. I can tell by... This will be his worst year between now and December. The changes will be so drastic. that I will need to make drastic changes. I know this. It's not, oh, you're overanalyzing. I know. I can tell. Yeah. My daughter.

and granddaughter were home recently. And night's not a good time for me, I'm sure, just like with Junior. So I just had to go to bed. But I can't sleep. They start getting in a conversation, and Colleen and Connor, my son, are kind of going at it as brothers and sisters do. So I got up, and I just walked in the kitchen to show myself. Went back, thought it would calm down. It didn't.

I got up again and said, you know, not a good time for me. Can you take this up tomorrow? Went back. And a little bit later, so I came out in full rage. And Connor knew and Mary Catherine knew and they just shut down like you were talking about. Colleen, who lives in Baltimore, she teaches inner city kids in Baltimore. And she's not there every day. So she engages.

And here I am in a swearing fest with my daughter, who I love, which hurt me tremendously. And then finally, this is about being in that place, I said to her, I don't want to be here. Do you understand, Colleen, what I'm saying? I don't want to be here anymore. And then I turned around. I didn't wait for a response.

I walked in the bedroom and slammed the door. I got up the next morning and apologized to her. But I said, honey, I apologize. But this isn't going to get better. It's going to get worse. And I'm sorry. You know, it's, well, you know, Gloria, it's tough. It's tough, and as a spouse, a caregiver, we... the spouse and caregiver or family members. I do believe if you don't, stop and understand.

what you would be like if you were in that person's world, that you're slowly killing yourself at the same time. Because when you become upset with them... They will calm down. You'll calm down quicker than your wife. When I would become upset with him initially, five minutes later, he's calm. He forgot whatever, what happened. I need another hour and a half to calm down. And I think, does this make sense? He doesn't even know what's going on, and you cannot go back to sleep. So go with it.

And I think that's why I'm happy. I just go with it. I know based on my notes, it's going to get worse. I know there will be a time in which he will have on pull-ups. I know it's coming. So either you kind of prepare for this or you become the person who is so unhappy because you have gotten sucked into this dark tunnel. And I'm not even sure that you can ever come act as a caregiver in space. And yes, I do say, I set. I set on my emotions all the time. Which means...

At the end, will I be able to regenerate these emotions? I hope so. Maybe this is why I laugh at what happens to me. I mean, to sing Happy Birthday to me in public and call me a dummy. To tell me sometimes I'm a dumbass. Okay.

I'm a dumbass, he said. Sometimes when I give him a show, you know, you're a dumbass. You think you know how to do everything. You know what, sweetheart? The person yesterday was calling me a dumbass. I guess I am a dumbass. That's my favorite word, by the way, dumbass, as David knows. I love that word. I'm a dumbass. I can be whatever you want me to be as long as I can shower, shave and give you a haircut. But no, I'm normally a dumbass or I think I know everything. You're a dumbass.

Last two weeks ago, he was going to divorce my black ass. Those are his words. I'm going to divorce your black ass. I said, sweetheart, I tell you what. I don't think this is a good time to divorce my black ass. Don't tell me when I should divorce you. I'll divorce your black ass in a second. Sweetheart, I don't think it's a good choice to divorce my black ass at this point. Sunday, whatever you need, if you need money, I can give you all the money you need if you need to take a vacation.

That's the person I know. Not good. Not a good choice. That's the one thing you'll correct him on. It's not a good choice. I'm not saying don't divorce me. It's not a good choice. You're not going with that scenario. You're not saying, okay, yeah, we're divorced now. It's not a good choice. You would say he's going to divorce. Not a good choice, sweetheart. Don't do me any favors.

Everything else you go with. I go with him. You go with his story, but not when it comes to that. I don't think divorcing me is a good choice. Yeah, that would put him in. Not at this point. A totally different spot. Well, we're out of time.

Obviously, we've got much more to say, but that's it for our show today. Greg and I would like to thank our special guest, Gloria Claiborne. Thank you so much, Gloria, for being here and giving so much of yourself to this conversation. It's a difficult conversation. Here at Argo Studios, our engineer was Ivan Kureyev. The Forgetting is a production of WCAI in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Our producer is the great Sean Corcoran. Thank you, Sean. Our theme music was composed and produced.

by Dr. Rudy Tanzi, who is also chair of the research consortium at Cure Alzheimer's Fund. Thank you, Rudy, as always. Greg, you still owe me $100. Don't forget that. Okay. I usually tell them... Gloria that I'm going to fax it to him. But I'm sitting next to him, but I'm going to tell him because you made me pay for a breakfast. You're not getting shit today. Yeah, we're going to subtract that bill from the hundred bucks.

breakfast i'll come back next time with with a new tab you need to do your math all right