The Spectrum of Hope by Gayatri Devi

Author:Gayatri Devi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
Published: 2017-08-25T15:08:04+00:00

Ben was a tall, suave, well-dressed man who had recently retired from running a multinational company. Over a period of forty years, he had worked his way up from being a stock boy to the CEO. By the time of his retirement, Ben had built up quite an empire.

When this savvy businessman found out at age 71 that he had slowly progressive Alzheimer’s, he handled it with composure. “So I forget!” he would exclaim. “Everyone forgets! So I forget a little bit more than other people. What does it matter? It’s not a big deal. It’s not like I have cancer. I’m doing everything I can to treat this—that’s the best I can do.”

His wife, Gail, meanwhile, was devastated by her husband’s diagnosis. She was a nervous wreck to the point that she eventually needed to go on antidepressants to calm down.

Ben warned me early on, “Don’t you pay attention to my wife. She’s a nervous Nellie, and this has thrown her for a loop.”

Every time Ben forgot something, no matter how insignificant, Gail called me. “He forgot to take his keys,” she would say. “He wanted to wear the same pair of trousers two days in a row.” Every day, there was something else. “He didn’t know which exit to get off when he was driving. Does this mean he’s getting worse? Does this mean he’s going to die next year? Does this mean he’s about to lose his mind?”

Sometimes, this would happen in my office when both of them were present. Ben would turn to her and say, “Can you cut that out already? Relax!” But his wife simply wasn’t able to.

Gail understood she was a worrywart and that her anxiety served no constructive purpose, yet she was simply unable to stop. Once, in absolute exasperation, I said to her jokingly, “I am going to lock you in the closet and throw away the key!”

“Not a bad idea,” she said, laughing. We had reached a stage where she would let me gently tease her about her anxiety. “I know I can get pretty nuts sometimes.”

I got a call from her internist the very next day. “Gayatri,” he said, “I heard you threatened to lock up Gail yesterday. I wish I’d thought of that years ago. She is a sweetheart, but boy, does she work herself up into a tizzy.”

The charm of Gail was that she had a sense of humor about her anxiety. She didn’t take what I said as an affront, but rather as a sign of my own frustration at being unable to calm her down.

After much cajoling, her internist and I persuaded Gail to see a psychiatrist, who prescribed an antidepressant that also helped her anxiety. Ben was very pleased with the results.

“She’s a lot easier to live with now,” Ben told me. “We should have done this forty years ago. If only I had known!”

It is important to attend to the emotional needs of both patients and their caregivers. Their needs are intertwined. The

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