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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Next >> She remembers clearly "the first time he said he didn't know who I was, during the first year, before I even knew he had Alzheimer's. I really thought he was kidding. But he wasn't. And then he started to forget the names of the kids. And that hurt. They didn't understand what was going on."
Financially, the impact has been disastrous, as Jim's construction career came to a permanent and abrupt halt. "So we had no income," he said. "We had to use all our savings. We lost our house, we lost our car, we lost everything that we worked for."
They now subsist on a fixed disability insurance and Social Security. They also lost their private health insurance. Medicare pays for some of Jim's Alzheimer's medications --such as Exelon and Namenda-- as well as the antidepressant Prozac. "But still," Michelle says, "the prescriptions are too much. So we have to get prescription samples from doctors to get by."
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The Muellers say the disease has also affected the very nature of their relationship.
"Basically, instead of me taking care of everything, she does," he says. "We've switched roles. It's as if I'm not here sometimes. My wife has to make the decisions, because I can't."
But Jim reserves his greatest heartbreak for the toll the disease has taken on his girls.
"They know dad's sick," he adds. "So they don't push me like they used to. I do see them all the time, which is good. But it's not the same. They kind of leave me alone. But they're very smart kids... They've been very helpful and thoughtful, and they've given up a lot."
On Friday, Jim, Michelle, and their children are taking their story to New York City to speak at an Alzheimer's Foundation of America (AFA) conference, entitled, "Preparing for the Crisis: Diagnosing & Caring or People in Their 30s, 40s, & 50s with Young-Onset Alzheimer's Disease".
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