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with her. That way, she would be able to stay in her home instead of facing the difficult transition of moving into a nursing home.

The situation got tougher for the both of them. My husband had to keep a constant eye on her as she would try to sneak out in the morning, trying to go to work forgetting that she was retired. Every morning, there was crying, yelling and frustration on her part. She would see my husband as the enemy when in fact, he was helping her in every way possible. She started to suffer from dementia, hearing voices telling her to do "bad things", this voice used to literally drive her to the brink of depression. According to her, that voice was coming from the inside of the dryer. That is when my husband decided to take care of the laundry himself to help her avoiding anguish and panic attacks. What was in fact happening was that she could not recognize her inner voice as her own anymore.

During conversations, she was mainly focusing on past events, especially the ones that happened a long time ago while her short term memory was gradually wasting away. As friends and family started to phone or visit less often, her memory of them also started to fade away. That is when her oldest son started to decrease his visits and gradually coming twice a year, Christmas day and once every summer.

Gradually, she was unable to perform tasks that she used to do all her life like making herself coffee or toasts. She needed assistance with feeding, reminders to go to the washroom or take a shower. Her vocabulary started to decrease and both her fine and gross motor skills were gradually loosing their abilities. Her walking was labored.

During my second year living under the same roof, other changes applied besides my pregnancy. She started to lose control of both her bladder and her bowels. She was forgetting my name regularly and was not sure of my relationship to her and most important of all, the type of relationship that linked my husband and herself as mother and son. She no longer was able to take a shower on her own, choose clothes or dress without assistance. She could not care for her dog anymore. We even had to hide the dog food as she would feed him constantly and it was starting to become a health concern for him.

A year later, the baby was amongst us. Although she smiled at him, she was unable to hold him without supervision. In fact, she once let a neighbor who was later diagnosed with Alzheimer's herself, come into the house, take a peek at the

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