One Step at a Time: Living as caretaker

Connie and Larry McCart were 16 years old when they got married, and they celebrated their 60th anniversary in February 2020 at the nursing facility where Larry lived because of his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. It was their last anniversary together before he passed away Aug. 6, 2020.

Larry’s experience with Alzheimer’s and Connie’s experience being his caretaker was a journey, Connie says, that deepened her faith.

“You hear people say when they go through a really difficult time or a crisis in their life that they’d do it all over again because of their spiritual [experience],” Connie says. “It’s like, I can even say that because God was leading in such a mighty way, and I just was in awe.”

Signs that everything wasn’t normal began in 2009, when Larry started struggling with his memory. Connie says during this time, they argued, which she now realizes was because he was having difficulties with his memory but didn’t know why. Previously diagnosed with sleep apnea, Connie thought perhaps his forgetfulness was due to sleep apnea fog. In 2011, after an appointment at the Memory Care Unit, Larry was diagnosed with mild dementia, some because of sleep apnea and most because of Alzheimer’s.

Larry was able to meet with his friends for coffee and Bible studies and go on vacation with his family for several years until 2015, when the doctor recommended looking into skilled nursing. Connie wanted Larry to live at home for as long as possible and had help come to their home to care for him several hours each day. She says she prayed God would make it clear to her if she was supposed to put Larry in a nursing home.

One day, that answer came: While dressing Larry, she hurt her arms. In February 2016, Connie took Larry to the nursing home.

While he lived there, she spent five to six hours with him each day, feeding him, advocating for him and enjoying being with him. She also slept in his room each night for a year, until her knees began to give out and made it hard for her to get up from the cot to check on him during the night.

Although it was challenging, she says she held onto the small moments.

“One night, whenever I was staying there with him, he said, ‘Connie? Are you home?’ I said, ‘I’m right here, Larry,’ and he said, ‘Thank you.’ And to me, that was just so sweet,” Connie recalls. “It was like, then I realized, ‘OK, my home is where Larry’s at. These four walls are my home right now.’”

In 2017, Connie sold her home in Jackson and moved to Cape Girardeau to be closer to Larry. This way, when she woke up in the night thinking about him, she was able to check on him.

“I was exhausted, and there were many tears throughout, which, it’s a human thing,” Connie says. “I’d wake up in the morning, and I’d just be like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I can do it again.’ And then God would get me up, and he would give me the strength. I’d go there, and I really can say that it’s the first time in my life that I really … felt like it was the love of Christ that was doing it all through me. Just amazing.”

When the pandemic began, Connie saw Larry 20 minutes each day, through a door. She says she structured each of her days around this visit. She was able to be with Larry in the room when he passed away.

Connie says “everything becomes a challenge” when being the caretaker for a loved one with Alzheimer’s, because “nothing [makes] sense” to the person being cared for as the disease escalates. She says being the one who made the decisions was challenging.

Through the difficult choices, Connie says the key was trust.

“The joy is in the love, but God gives you peace as things happen in the challenges that you make the decisions for. It’s like, ‘OK, this is.’ And then you can just trust him. You just trust him,” she says. “That’s a joy in itself, trusting God in leading you forward one step at a time, and that’s what it becomes. It becomes one step at a time. ‘Okay, I can do this, because he’s helping.’”

Hear Connie tell her story in her own words at the Survivor Stories event Thursday, Oct. 28, at 6 p.m. at One City, presented by Ramsey Branch Retirement Community and Cape Family Medical. Reserve your complimentary ticket at https://2021survivorseries.eventbrite.com, or watch online — no ticket needed — at https://www.facebook.com/semissourian.