My husband Donnie was recently diagnosed with significant dementia after cognitive testing was done. You see, he had noted a decline in his memory and sought his family physicians' advice and was seen by a neuropsychologist.

This news alone was a shock to me but the shocks keep coming.... 1 month after his testing, Donnie fell in the bathroom for no apparent reason. He sustained a subdural hematoma, a blood clot in the brain. This is considered a traumatic brain injury. I, of course, was more concerned about why he fell.... After 8 days in the hospital, we were sent home to further recover, and after about 3 weeks at home, on the day of my birthday, he came home with an anniversary card! When asked why an anniversary card...his response was "it was in the birthday aisle." Something else was going on. Sure enough, 3 days later he went into full-blown hallucinations with severe myoclonic jerking and muscle twitching.

This was another 8-day hospital stay and the neurologist and psychiatrist both came to the conclusion of FTD. I have been reading ever since...anything that can help me have an insight. Hindsight is 20/20...when I look back on the last 3-4 years there have been some warning signs...poor driving, terrible financial insight, poor judgment dealing with our children, anger outbursts, repeating stories from the past over and over and always talking about the future but never living in the present. Currently, to everyone else he seems pretty much like himself and sometimes he is, but then other times I am like "wow.” He does not like to be without me at all. Mornings are very bad for him, as he says, "my thoughts are all over the place." He has a very poor short-term memory. He does not seem to enjoy people at all and will sit for hours in front of the TV. He is fixated on eating and not having enough food in the house, and I have noticed some muscle wasting. All this and he is only 58! Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? I too, as one caregiver said, feel as if I am on an island alone.