OK, so that's a bit of a dramatic title. Still, when I think about it, almost everything about my life has changed in the last five years.

1. Work: 

I now work from home as a freelance translator. Granted, I didn't need my parents to be struck with cognitive illnesses to take this step, but that's what happened. I had a full-time, permanent job when my mother was hospitalized with what we later learned was the onset of Parkinson's dementia. I had an understanding boss who let me take time off (deducted from my vacation time) to oversee my parents' move to a senior residence, the sale of their house with the help of my siblings (an experience that I relive with some bitter and profound regrets), and organize the first Christmas celebration ever outside our family home. This was in 2005. 

In early 2006, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He had had a terribly difficult time adjusting to the residence, having had a near-obsessive attachment to the house, and consequently likely suffered from depression his first six months there. My mother, on the other hand, was like a person reborn, taking part in the activities, enjoying the social contact with other residents, the nearby park, etc.

In June of 2007, my mother was in hospital with a diagnosis of non-Hodgkins' lymphoma. Within two weeks of her return, she was admitted to Emergency with a perforated bowel. I had already given my resignation, fully intending to start up my own business as a self-employed, home-based translator, but decided instead to look after my mother on her return to the residence (beg. Sept.), in the hope of preventing yet a third trip to the hospital -- in my mind it was "all bad things come in threes". Maybe my subconscious knew that my father was not able to take care of her the way she needed to be. She'd lost weight, her hair was thin and wispy, and she would have continued to do the laundry, the shopping, and my father's bidding, as she was used to. By the fall, he was having difficulty taking his medication as prescribed (I used to find extra pills, which he said were "extras"); and sometimes couldn't understand why my mother "wasn't getting better" (i.e. do all the things she used to do when she was younger and more able). 

I gingerly started taking on work towards the end of October.

Beginning 2008, I'm told by the residence's director that my mother needed extra care, and a move to the 2nd floor (assisted living) was strongly recommended. Until a room become available, however, I hired attendants to do night duty, because my mother had begun to wander the hallways (on occasion, naked!). They did double-duty with my dad there too. Mid-January, my father and I had a huge argument, I fell to pieces, not understanding at the time it was not him who was talking, but the person with Alzheimer's. I called my brother in Ottawa (the sibling living nearest to me) - only got the answering machine -, so I phoned my sister in Switzerland, who answered and by then I'm frantic and sobbing and saying "I can't take this anymore!". She managed to reach my brother and, bless his wife, who tells him to get to Montreal pronto! He arrived some two hours later, and after I recounted what happened, called 'our' hospital and talked to a doctor who told him he's to bring my father in right away. My father went with my brother. It's a Sunday. I wonder afterwards how he got my father to go to a hospital on a Sunday. When I asked him, later, he said that he'd explained to our father that the doctor had called to say his (bogus) appointment had been brought forward due to XYZ reason, and my father accepted the explanation (goes to show how far the illness had progressed)!

My father stayed "under observation" for three weeks. They would've discharged him sooner, only we were in the process of moving my mother from their 3rd floor apartment to her 2nd floor room, and we didn't want him to stay alone in the apartment. Thankfully the head geriatrician accepted to keep my dad another week or so - in the meantime, miraculously, another room had become available (unfortunately, but as it so often happens, because the tenant had passed away). So we ended up clearing out the 3rd floor apartment and setting up a separate room for my father - no other option was considered workable.

So, my father came back from hospital on February 9, 2008, and found himself in an unfamiliar room on the 2nd floor, separate from his wife. Hard to say how he accepted this in his mind, since, two days later, my mother broke the neck of her left femur. She was operated on three days later. I spent most of the next six weeks in hospital keeping an eye on her, and in between kept another eye on my dad, bringing him to visit my mother on days when the timing was good. March was one of the worst winter months in years. I doubt I worked much during that time, since I remember catching the bus to get to the hospital at around 7:30 a.m. and getting home between 8 and 9 p.m.

TO BE CONTINUED