Member-only story
My Husband Will Probably Get Dementia. I’ll Probably Have Cancer.
I’m afraid my family history of cancer will catch up with me — and that dementia will come for my husband
My husband’s parents both have dementia and that terrifies me. Every time Kevin can’t think of a word, or I say something and he stares at me blankly like I’ve suddenly started speaking pig latin, or he can’t remember something I think he should, I get this sick feeling of panic.
We just moved to the small Pennsylvania town where he grew up. At least once a week, he points to the grounds of his old elementary school and says, “Did I tell you I helped plant that tree?” Or we cross a bridge near the middle school and he says, “That’s where I fell off my bike in the sixth grade.”
Every time he tells me a story he’s told me before. Every time he struggles to understand something that comes easy to me. Every time he blinks and shakes his head like he’s waking himself up and asks me to repeat myself.
Every time. I get this cold finger of fear up my spine.
Kevin doesn’t get scared the way that I do; I don’t know why. Honestly, sometimes his blasé attitude toward the whole thing scares me even more. Is it a sign that he’s already in the early stages of dementia, that…
