How a Couple Found Joy in The Face of Alzheimer's

Brut America

When her husband, Ady, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Helene Berger vowed to seek joy in the face of the disease. During the last 2 years of his life, he achieved what is considered impossible: played Mozart on the piano, solved Sudoku puzzles and wrote love letters.

Transcript

00:00When the doctor made that pronouncement of those three words, my husband looked at him

00:13and said, I don't want to live anymore.

00:40We may not be able to change the disease, but how we handle it can change your loved

00:52one's life and your life together.

01:03It was not medication, but it was the two of us working together, instead of being

01:10a time of drudgery and horror, it was truly, not only content, it was more than content.

01:18I saw the difference in this man.

01:21I knew I had a hand in helping him get there, and it was, we had precious times together.

01:28We made everything we did as sweet as possible.

01:39Almost every decision was made as a partnership.

01:43I came to him with a problem, and we solved it together, and instead of fighting each

01:47other and being angry at each other, we were a team, looking ahead in the same direction.

01:58The bottom line is that what he was able to do in the final few years, he went back to

02:07the piano.

02:08He hadn't played in three years.

02:11He never knew Sudoku.

02:13In the first two years, this mathematician, I thought he'd love it.

02:17He couldn't understand where all those little numbers went in little boxes.

02:20The last two, three years, he played Sudoku every night.

02:36We're human, and an Alzheimer's patient will ask the same question many, many times.

02:43In the beginning, even though I said the word sweetly, if he said, where are you going tonight?

02:49I would say, sweetie, I'm going to the ballet with Elaine.

02:52Oh, yeah, okay.

02:55And the second time, third, by the fourth or fifth time, what you do, everyone does,

03:02I did, is instinctively take that in, take a breath, or raise their eyebrow, or say the

03:14same words in, dear, I'm going to the ballet with Elaine, implying, I told you that a thousand

03:22times already.

03:23And one night, as I said it, I saw I was very sensitive to his mood, and he was very sensitive

03:32to mine.

03:33And I saw it was like a punch in the gut, and I vowed to myself, I'm not doing that

03:39again.

03:44On the night that he unexpectedly passed away, we took 17 people out for dinner, and miraculously,

04:07he greeted every one of those 17 people by name.

04:11Two of the couples, good friends, said the same words, are you sure he has Alzheimer's?

04:20And yes, he did, but in the course of those six years, and it wasn't me alone, I made

04:27plenty of mistakes in the beginning, but in the course of those six years, he kept getting

04:34better and better and better.

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