When my wife was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's in 2011, she told me that she knew that I'd take good care of her. She then asked a very tough question... "Who will take care of you when I no longer can?" I laughed it off and refused to talk about it until three years ago when I saw a text on her phone begging one of her friends in our neighborhood to come and visit her. She never saw her again and most of her other friends had distanced themselves. Again, she wanted us to find someone to be a friend for us both, even to the point of trying to fix me up with some of the single ladies in our community. At that time, I too, exhausted from the day to day stresses and loneliness of full-time caregiving was at an all-time low and felt my health suffering. It's a well-known fact that all too often, the caregiver dies before the patient with dementia. I promised my wife that I'd never place her in a facility and she would be with me until the very end. I even wrote a piece on it that is published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul Book. So, together, we joined a dating site. Both of our photos were displayed and I said that we wanted a companion to enjoy life to the fullest. I was adamant that it wasn't anything other than a platonic relationship. My wife sat beside me, paged through over 200 responses and, after weeding out the obvious gold diggers, loonies, and baggage laden losers, we met a few in person. I also said that I would not meet anyone for the first time without my wife present. I wanted to see the compassion in their eyes for her, as well as my wife's response to them. For one reason or another, we never found anyone who was perfect for our situation so I quit the site and took a few months off. Many of those we met either online or in-person continue to be Facebook friends. Two years ago, on another site, we met the perfect sweetheart for us both. She and my wife immediately bonded. They're like sisters. They go shopping, visit friends and family, get hair and nails done and, as an alternative family of three, are always together. We've done a lot of travel and have been giving my wife a quality of life that she'd never been able to have whether in the best facility or just me, a completely depressed, burned-out caregiver. She no longer knows my name, that we're married but she knows that she's surrounded by love and the constant smile on her face tells me we're doing the right thing for her.
