"Dementia is a group of symptoms caused by gradual death of brain cells. The loss of cognitive abilities that occurs with dementia leads to impairments in memory, reasoning, planning and behavior."

When I was a sophomore in high school my grandpa was diagnosed with the earliest stage of dementia. We started noticing that my grandpa was forgetting things that he NEVER forgets. He used to ask me all the time if I loved him, and I would always respond with "yes grandpa of course I love you." And that would be the end of that. He then started asking me the question over and over and over again even though I had just answered him seconds ago. At first I just thought he was doing it to push my buttons so I would just keep answering because I could never be mad at my grandpa. Everything was fine for a couple weeks until one day my grandpa was driving home from taking my sister and I to a doctors appointment and he forgot that red lights mean stop. Thank god for my grandma because if she wouldn't have caught it we would have died. From that moment we knew something was wrong and my grandpa was no longer allowed to drive a car.

Fast forward a couple months to Christmas eve, my family had just finished eating dinner and we were waiting around for the adults to finish cleaning up so all the kids can open their presents. My grandpa was starting to get restless which usually happens but something was different, he was getting violent especially with my grandma. He kept repeating "I want to go home, take me home now." My dad just kept telling him nicely that it wasn't time to go home yet and that he had to wait. He then walked over to my grandma and pushed her up against the wall and told her it was time to go now. My grandma started crying because she had never seen my grandpa get that violent with her before. My Christmas eve ended with my grandpa in the hospital because he raised his hands to my grandma and she had to stay at our house that night. My grandpa was no longer allowed to be alone with my grandma again.

After being in the hospital for a couple days, the doctors told my dad that my grandpa had been diagnosed with around the Stage 3 which is not quite dementia yet but the memory does start to decline at a faster rate and the anger and personality changes do increase as well.

My grandpas progress seemed to be getting worse at a faster rate then we expected and my grandma could not care for him on her own. As a family we decided to do the right thing and have my grandpa and grandma live with us in our house. At this point my grandpa was at Stage 5 dementia, he needed assistance with pretty much everything. That included eating, drinking, getting dressed and bathing. His speaking was also starting to go away; it seemed with every day that went by he was forgetting how to talk. By the 3rd week of him living with us he had no idea how to speak, and all that came out of his mouth was jumble and babble as if he was a newborn. This really hurt me in a way that not many people could understand, when I was younger my grandpa would tell me all about his childhood and the adventures he went on; nothing made me happier. Knowing I would never be able to hear those stories again made me realize how real this was.

After about 3 months of us taking care of my grandpa, it was getting to much for my family and me. By this time my grandpa had the personality and brain cells of a newborn. He no longer could talk, every time we asked him a question he would just laugh. My mom had made him flash cards with pictures so we could try and re-teach him the things he had forgotten. I remember trying to teach my grandpa how to write his name again, he couldn't even pick up the pencil the right way. I would always end up writing his name for him and seeing if he still knew who he was; he did.

As a family we decided that it was time to let the professionals take care of my grandpa. None of us wanted to put him into an assisted living home, but we all knew that it was the best decision for my grandpa and us. I didn't like the idea of putting my grandpa in a living home, it made it look like our family was giving up on him. I hated visiting my grandpa I felt like I was walking through the island of lost souls. All I felt was sadness in that building, seeing my grandpa living in a room by himself with no decorations except some small pictures of my sister and I on his wall above his bed. I remember going to visit him for his birthday and my sister and I brought him balloons and when we asked him who's birthday it was, he pointed to himself and smiled. It brought joy to my face to see him happy for once in a very long time, but for some reason it just wasn't the same, he wasn't my grandpa, he was just some man who looked like my grandpa. For me to even think about him like that made my heart shatter into a million pieces.

I stopped going to see my grandpa; that was the worst decision I had ever made and I regret it every single day of my life. My grandpa's life was slowly coming to an end, he could no longer eat solid foods, or walk with his walker, or even make noises or gestures to show he heard what we had said. His life went from telling me stories of his childhood and taking me on adventures to being stuck in an awful living home being fed from a tube surrounded by people who didn't give a damn about him. My family decided the right thing to do was to put my grandpa out of the pain he was in. My grandpa's dementia had gotten so severe and he had forgotten how to breath on his own. The only reason he was living another day was because of his breathing tube, after a lot of thinking and talking my dad had decided to pull the tube and let my grandpa finally go in peace and put him out of his misery.

Living with someone who has dementia is not something I would wish upon my worst enemy. Nothing is worse than losing contact with someone who is still living. Imagine having that person right in front of you but they can't speak to you. I am forever wishing there is a cure for this awful disease. Throughout everything my grandpa had gone through and everything he had forgotten there was one thing that couldn't seem to leave his mind; my name, my existence. He knew who I was through it all. My grandpa never got to see me graduate high school, he never got to see me go to my senior prom and he doesn't get to be there when I graduate college. My grandpa's life was taken from him to early and the last two years of his life, he spent them in a place surrounded by strangers, blank walls, and no love. My advice to you, go give your grandparents a call because you never know when the next time you'll be able to speak to them again.

I love you grandpa, I hope you're proud of me.