My Grandpa and Alzheimer's Disease

Before Alzheimer’s Disease:

Today I want to write about the greatest man I have ever known. I am not talking about some sort of sports figure or celebrity, I am going to talk about Richard “Dick” Briel; my grandpa. Too much is made of so-called “Heroes” whom are nowhere near the caliber of someone like my grandpa. I hear kids and people all the time when asked about whom their hero is refer to Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Past Presidents and all sorts of other celebrities. I probably said the same thing when I was younger…I probably said Michael Jordan, not knowing the actual true meaning of a hero. I guess you just never know until you reach a certain age or maturity.

I grew up in a small town called Ottawa, Illinois. By the time I was born my grandfather already had an unbelievable reputation as someone important and special in the community. He owned a Dairy Queen restaurant and was looked at as one of the “good guys” in town. He was somewhat of a small town “rockstar.”

When I was little my grandfather took over the role of father since my dad had left me when I was two. Since I can remember, grandpa was always there for me and always picking me up when I fell down; I fell down a lot. I have never met someone with such patients. I was the type of child that pushed boundaries and tested the limits of one’s patience. I was never really able to break the man though…luckily for me. I was a terror; I was out of control, moody, wild, stubborn and top that off with being an only child…yeah, I was a little more than a handful.

I often hear stories of tantrums and fits I would throw where my grandmother thought I may have epilepsy and there might be something seriously wrong with me. In the midst of my ridiculous outbursts, my grandpa would deal with me, not by giving me a spanking or with threats, but with kindness and love. I will be the first to admit that I completely deserved a beating but he wasn’t that type of guy; well not for me at least.

Apparently my mother and aunt didn’t have the easy going dad, they had a disciplinarian. They tell me he completely mellowed by the time I came around and got away with everything. He used to be a hot-head and would pull his belt out to give them a nice spanking once in a while, but it was more of a threat I think. I don’t actually thing he used the belt, even though I am sure they too deserved it.

Throughout my childhood, being a pain in the ass kid, I spent a lot of time with my grandpa. He would take me fishing, camping, golfing, play basketball, taught me how to play baseball, attend my school functions, and would always take me for ice cream. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for me. Actually…there really wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for anyone really.

If someone needed a favor, help moving, or needed a helping hand with anything, they would call Dick Briel. He was truly a selfless person. When I was in my teen years, not only was he available to help out everyone, but that pretty much made me available; we were sort of a package deal. I remember cutting people’s grass, painting houses and being personal movers. I would get frustrated that grandpa would commit us to doing annoying and tedious jobs which the only reward was “thank you.” There were a number of days I would be pissed off and sulking as I helped him do whichever job he had us doing, but looking back, those were some of my favorite memories with him.

One of me and my grandfather’s favorite things to do was go fishing. We had some wild adventures from being lost in upper Wisconsin for hours on end, to camping out by a belching sewer duct to deep sea fishing seasickness to launching the pick-up truck into the Illinois River. Yeah, the whole Pick-up truck was in the river.

Speaking of trucks, one thing that I will always remember is watching him run behind his truck as it careened down two large hills and down into a creek behind out house. That was a sight to be seen. There are so many hilarious stories in which he has been involved in that I could go on for days.

You know what else he was good at…everything. This man could do anything you needed done. He could build anything, he could fix anything (although it would be rigged in some sort of way), he could make a bad situation better, he could be your parent, and he could be your friend. My grandfather was “Mr. Fix-It” with not only our family, but every other family we knew. He was an expert Landscaper, carpenter and engineer all rolled into one person.

Lastly, my grandpa was the strongest person I ever knew. Growing up, it was hard for me to keep up with him. He was “on” non-stop. He managed to work at least 12 hours a day running either the Dairy Queen or the Car Wash, come home and play with me and also do the yard work and any around-the-house chores that needed to be done. Looking back…I guess I really ran him into the ground. On the other hand, he would be the one asking if I wanted to go do things such as go golfing or fishing. He was a human energizer bunny.

I saw him get some brutal injuries which amazed me that he barely flinched. One day we were cleaning out the “pit” at the carwash (a huge gutter where all the dirt, mud and sludge collects under the carwash) and he busted his head wide open on a steel grate. Most people would let out a loud scream along with a profanity laced tirade, but ol’ Dick Briel just grunted, grabbed a dirty towel with mud and yuck all over it and applied it to his gaping wound. He would have finished the job if I hadn’t insisted he go take care of the cut. He didn’t go to the hospital however…he didn’t have time for stitches. He just taped it up and went on his way.

My life was full of stories such as that. With such a strong male figure in my life, crying wasn’t too much of an option from when I got hurt.

There was only one thing he was wrong about on a continual basis that I discovered growing up. Whenever we would be outside working on the yard, or eating lunch or whatever and a bee would come around he would always say “the bee isn’t going to bother you unless you bother it.” Well, seems like every time he said that he got stung. Seriously, it was unbelievable how many times he was stung. If there was a record in the Guinness Book of World Records, he would absolutely be the record holder.

Grandpa always put his family first and took care of us the best he could. We could never ask more of him and I know he went far past what was ever expected of him. He instilled values and morals in me that I live with today and he is one of the biggest influences in my life that shaped me into who I have become today. There were times where I screwed up and even though he was disappointed in me, he was there to pick up the pieces.

I was arrested when I was younger for vandalizing a department store and when he found out he didn’t yell at me or even give me a big long lecture; his eyes said it all. He was upset that I could have done something like that and it killed me. I was more upset that I disappointed him than being arrested. I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

When I was sentenced to community service, I had to clean that same department store’s parking lot. The parking lot was completely littered and there was so much trash to pick up it made my head spin. Guess who was there with me picking it up? Grandpa was there with me helping me out like he always did.

The Start of Alzheimer’s:

When I got older we still spent a lot of time together. I still saw him at least 3 times a week and we would still do things together. When I was about 22 I moved back in with my grandparents after I sold my townhouse and decided I wanted to build a recording studio. I needed to build a vocal booth and asked my grandfather to help me. We hadn’t built anything in some time so he was excited to do something like that with me again.

As we got into the process however, something was different. Grandpa, the man who could do and build anything, was having trouble. He was second guessing every move he made; he was forgetting how to do certain things and was having a hard time understanding what I was trying to do. I was getting very frustrated because he pretty much built their house in Ottawa by himself. I mean, we were building a box with a door; not too hard.

After a few days of working on this project and me being at my wits end with him, I had to confront my grandmother. I told her that I thought something was wrong with grandpa and I was so upset that he wasn’t understanding what we were doing or what to do next. I said he was forgetting things and not acting like the same person which she agreed she had seen too.

After some hesitation we scheduled a doctor’s appointment for my grandpa which we inevitably got the news that he in fact had Alzheimer’s disease. We were all upset but knew that this was something that takes time to progress and knew we had valuable time with him. Unfortunately, his moved fast.

I remember driving with him in the car and he asked me why God would do this to him. He asked me if I thought he was a good person and if he was why would he be given this disease. I didn’t know what to say, but I said he was the best and I don’t know why he got the disease. I wish I could have come up with something better to say. I think about the day often.

Five years ago I married my wife and luckily my grandpa was there to see it. My wife only knew him a short amount of time but she immediately fell in love with him and looked to him more as a father than her own. He was always there to comfort her when everyone else seemed to be against her in the beginning of our marriage; that’s when she was able to see what so many other people saw in him.

As the disease progressed things got much harder. Instead of popping in on my grandma and grandpa, I would be called to help my grandma out. It seemed like there would be a nightly occurrence that my grandfather would want to go home…but he was at home. He didn’t think the house they were living in was his and would argue with my grandmother that he needed to go home. After he refused to listen to my grandma, I would come over and show him pictures of us in that very house and explain that this was in fact his home. He was always very hesitant to believe me and would ask me how I managed to make those pictures because…well, he figured they were doctored.

I hated seeing my grandpa so confused and frustrated with himself. I know he knew something wasn’t right and I am pretty sure he knew it was in his mind. The last thing my grandmother wanted to do was commit him to a home so she decided she would just take care of him herself. That worked for a little while, but having someone with Alzheimer’s who is completely mobile and active is hard work. Other than having diabetes, my grandpa was a healthy man; he did not act his age. If he did not get Alzheimer’s, he would be active and working 12 hour days to this day; that’s just the type of guy he was.

After a while my grandma couldn’t handle watching him all day. She was constantly trying to corral him when he tried to take off with the truck, or wander off somewhere. She tried to put him in an adult day care program for people like him, but that was short lived. I took him to the adult day care one time and it was brutal. The people in this class were old, mostly immobile (wheelchair bound) or just sat in a chair staring out into space. On the day I took him, the directors of the facility were playing a bowling game with a large rubber ball and some plastic pins. My grandpa, looked at them like they were crazy when they asked him to play…I mean, this is something I would do with my three year old; not with a grown man. I knew immediately that this was not going to work.

After a few more months the realization that we needed to put him in a nursing home was inevitable. My family and I all researched the local care centers and found a place we felt comfortable with. The day we checked him into the nursing home was one of the hardest days of my life. My entire family went with him to the nursing home, gave him hugs and kisses, told him we loved him and that we would visit him all the time. After we left the nursing home we all gathered at a pancake house and wept.

I can’t imagine what people were thinking when they walked into the pancake house and saw ten people sitting together crying. We really didn’t care much what other people thought though.

These were the darkest days of my life, I fell into a deep depression and nothing looked hopeful for me. I had nothing left to give anyone and didn’t know what I was going to do with myself. I honestly don’t think I would have made it through this portion of my life if it weren’t for my wife getting pregnant with our first girl. I guess once I knew there was someone I could raise like my grandfather raised me, it gave me something to live for.

I would visit my grandpa at least 3 times per week, sometimes more and I would talk to him about whatever came to mind. I would try and talk to him about stories and adventures we had as I was growing up; sometimes he remembered, sometimes he didn’t. I was hard seeing him kept in somewhat of captivity when he was the type of person who was always out and about.

Speaking of “out”, he sure did try to escape plenty of times. Actually, he was kicked out of a few nursing homes because they weren’t capable of dealing with someone like him who is mobile and motivated. It made me so angry when my grandmother would get calls from the homes pretty much threatening to get rid of him if he didn’t stop trying to leave. How are threats helpful? How could you threaten to kick out a loved one when we have no control over the issue? Is that part of the job description; to threaten people when their loved one is acting out because they are scared and confused?

It blows my mind that these care centers aren’t capable, educated or smart enough to know that he has Alzheimer’s and is confused. If I woke up somewhere strange, I didn’t know how I got there or why I got there, you can bet your ass I am going to try and escape. If a bunch of people are telling me I live there and I belong there, do you think I am going to believe them? Nope. I completely understand the thought process of trying to leave a scary situation.

Also, when grandpa was evicted from a care center, they would send him to the psych unit of the hospital to be sedated and drugged. I guess when you don’t know what to do with someone you just pump them full of drugs right? That seems to be the way these people conduct business.

Eventually we found a facility that was able to handle grandpa and that is the last place he ever lived. He actually thought he worked at this place so when I would visit he would ask me if I could wait a few minutes while he finished his shift. The staff would tell me he would always ask the other patients if they needed anything, he would gather up the garbage and do small tasks around his floor. Many times he would tell me or my grandma that after work he would be home for dinner and come up with stories about what he did that day such as move light posts in the parking lot. Since he couldn’t leave the locked unit on the floor all he had to do was look out the window so somehow he just imagined doing certain jobs throughout the day.

There were some rough times when visiting however. Sometimes he just wanted to leave with us. For some reason I was one of the only people who could convince him to stay when we left. I hated having to trick him so often by telling him they still needed him to do work and we would be back after a while. I hated lying to him and often I would cry in the parking lot.

My wife, pregnant with Gianna, would also come to visit my grandpa with me. My grandpa would ask her why she had a beach ball under her shirt and we would tell him we were having a baby. I feared that he would pass on before she was born, but luckily he was able to see her. Although I wanted her to form a bond with my grandpa and be able to spend time with him alone, at least they were able to see each other. Although grandpa was a shell of the man he once was, I guess it meant something to me for him to at the very least be in her life for some small portion of time. My second daughter Lola didn’t get that same opportunity.

This next portion will probably get me in some trouble with my family. I have kept this secret for years and had not told anyone, even my wife, about this next incident.

Throughout his time at the nursing homes, I would often see bruises and cuts on my grandfather’s face, legs and arms. I would ask him what happened and of course he couldn’t tell me. He did say that the people were mean to him on a few occasions which made me suspicious. Anyway, I talked to the nurses or whatever they actually are and asked them about the bruises and cuts but no one really gave me a good explanation as to what was going on. I felt like they were just contributing to the conspiracy and purposely leaving me in the dark.

One day while visiting the home grandpa had a large bruise on the side of his face and a busted lip. Now, after dealing with random unexplained bruises and cuts for months, I had started to get fed up with the nonsense I was hearing. He was mobile, very active and did try to escape quite frequently and I know that some of the staff was irritated with his behavior. I could envision them hitting him and treating him like a dog and I wasn’t going to stand for it.

After asking grandpa what happened to his face and getting nowhere, I decided to send a message to the staff that this was unacceptable. I took my grandpa to his room and told him I would be back in a minute while I talked to some of the nurses. For some reason he actually stayed in his room…who knows why, but he did. I walked to the eating area where all the nurses were preparing dinner and lit into all of them. I was so upset with the treatment of my grandpa along with all the other patients in their care that I threatened them with physical harm if I found more unexplained bruises and cuts. I told them if my grandpa got a busted lip, they would get a busted lip. If my grandpa got a big bruise on their face, they would get a big bruise on their face. I also added in some sentence enhancers such as the “F word” and other explicit and descriptive words.

While I launched into my diatribe of anger and frustration a large nurse who looked as if she could care less what I was saying walked by pushing a cart full of food that she was going to be preparing for the patients. Since she was so rudely ignoring my comments and showing a high level of disrespect, I flipped the cart over containing the food, coffee and whatever else on to the floor and all over this fat ignorant bitch. That is when I was given their undivided attention.

Suddenly, people took me seriously. One woman called security who intern called the police. I was escorted out of the nursing home as I yelled to the nurses that I would be back and my grandpa had better not have any more mysterious bruises and cuts. The police talked to me in the lobby and outside in the parking lot. I was not arrested because one of the officers said he knew what I was going through and said he had a loved one in a nursing home too. I was given a verbal warning and was released.

I didn’t want to tell my grandma or anyone else about this because it would have just caused more drama. I didn’t want to add any more stress to her because I know she would have worried I would do something else. I can tell you this; the number of unexplained bruises and cuts diminished greatly. Actually my grandmother had told me she couldn’t believe how often the nursing home would call her to tell her if any incident occurred at the home involving my grandpa. My explosion probably wasn’t the right thing to do, but it sure did help. Now that I think about it, my grandmother probably already knows about this incident because she always finds out about everything. Oh well.

Over the next few months the disease progressed rendering my grandpa pretty much immobile. He would often just sit and stare off into the distance only to respond every once in a while during conversations. It killed me to watch him deteriorate mentally right in front of my eyes.

The last Christmas he was alive, I feel he knew he was about to pass on and tried to bring some sort of closure for me and my grandma. During a visit to the nursing home on Christmas day grandpa looked me in my eyes and motioned as if we were fishing with his hands. He used his hands to act like he was reeling in a fish and smiled at me. He hadn’t spoken to me in over a month but for some reason I knew he was pretty much saying his goodbyes. The same thing happened to my grandma; she visited him and while visiting he grabbed her face and told her he loved her.

He passed on just under a month after Christmas. I will never forget, I was in Orlando for business and rushed to get home to see him because hospice said he didn’t have long. I rushed to get a cab from the airport, told the driver to hurry and arrived at the nursing home. I walked in the door and my wife was there to tell me he was no longer with us. I broke down and held her for a while before I went upstairs to his room to say my goodbyes.

The wake was actually the hardest thing to do in my life. It was so hard to sit in a room with my grandfather’s dead body right next to me while people came to give their respects. I will never forget one friend of the family from Ottawa came up to me and said; “I’m so sorry…you lost your buddy.”

At the funeral I gave a very heartfelt eulogy and barely made it through the speech without turning into a complete hysterical mess. I ended my eulogy by saying my children may have not known my grandpa, but they will through me.

I have been raising money for the Alzheimer’s Association since before my grandfather died and will continue to for the rest of my life or I am unable to. This is a disease that is harder on the loved ones around the person with the disease and help is needed.

Sept 27, I will be walking to find a cure again. I do this every year and if you are interested in walking as well, you can sign up at the following link. This same link will allow you to make a donation as well. No donation is too small and…well, no donation is too big either. Either way, I appreciate everyone’s help.

http://memorywalk.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=338504&supid=188821115