Alzheimer or Dementia... Still Painful..

Two years ago my Granda started showing signs of something being wrong.. it was obvious something was wrong. It wasn't him forgetting where he placed his keys or someones name. He thought he had another home and when he WAS at home he believed that wasn't it and he would get very upset saying he wanted to go to HIS home. That this was Gran's home and she needed to choose.. We weren't certain exactly when he fell into this well of confusion but thinking back.. I begin to see a starting point. He use to say he sometimes thought someone was sneaking into the house and opening doors, moving things.. he felt like someone was in there with them. Obviously none of that was true.. but I see it for what it was now. I wish I had then and maybe he wouldn't have progressed so fast. Do I suffer guilt? Yes I do. I feel I should have seen the changes in him.. this is the man who raised me.. he is essentially my Da. It shouldn't have taken the slap in the face of his decline for me to see he was quietly suffering without knowing. As soon as I seen what was going on I stayed with them for 2 weeks got him in to a Dr who diagnosed him with Alzheimer. My Granda fought this diagnosis and still doesn't think their is anything wrong with him.. For about a year he did well on the medicines he was taking. The confusion over the 'houses' was gone.. He did start to misplace everything.. but I could live with this. It was so much easier to handle than seemingly losing Granda down the well of confusion. During that first year my Aunt was able to fly in from Boston and stay with them for a year. She left this past June. Since then Granda has declined so fast. My Granda is gone.. he is lost in his own world most of the time. He has now lost his drivers license.. I completely agree with the decision. But I see my Granda sitting there and he even looks different... I try to visit as often as possible... The girls can see the difference in him. He has been fighting with the Dr who diagnosed him so much about his diagnosis that I told him to get a second opinion from a neurologist.. which I thought he should have seen anyways. He has now been diagnosed with Dementia... but Dementia or Alzheimer they both cause pain.. they both make the sufferer lose ones self... they both make family member watch the afflicted disappear before our very eyes... Does this blog seem a bit selfish.. I guess it could be taken that way.. But as I sit here and type this I think about how he was as I grew up, how he was in the stories my Gran tells from their 67 YEARS of marriage.. I think about how he looked when he held my first baby.. and my second.. I think about so many things.. and I mourn him already a little bit because tho he is still here and he is still functioning he is a completely different person and it is so very very hard to get use to him. But one thing I do know... no matter who my Granda is.. I love him with everything in me and he will always be my Daddy.. Until next time..