It has gotten to the point now that I am totally stressed out because it is not easy taking care of him. He does not listen to what I have to say most of the time and has not been taking his medication on a regular basis. Can someone please let me know what the best approach is to handle my situation. Maybe I am not doing something right but any advise would be helpful!
It seems to me that with our pursuit of longevity and our increasing victories over what used to kill us (heart disease and cancer), we are lingering more with dementia. Personally, I don't want to be trapped in my body and afraid of those people who are changing my diaper. We see my mthr. I want to die before dementia would take me.
Thus: my husband (a heart patient) and I have decided that if he has dementia, he is going to eat all the chocolate ice cream and bar-b-que that he wants - and I am to offer it to him daily. He'd rather die of a sudden heart attack and not come back once he's been diagnosed with dementia. At the point he starts declining, we will stop his heart drugs. We'll probably try keep blood pressure drugs since a bad stroke is a pretty awful way to go, but the statins, the aspirin, the scans, the nitro - they will be gone. We will focus on comfort and pleasure in the time he has left. He knows I want the same.
In your shoes, I would stop worrying about preventing a disease that will kill my beloved quickly instead of leaving him for a disease that will kill him slowly. I see elderly men being wheeled into our cardiologist's office who have no idea where they are and I wonder why they are being kept here. You can decline to have additional cardiologist visits, drugs, and tests. It's ok to let go.