Facing the hard truth

If your parents are still on this earth and you are an adult, I'm sure you will be able to relate to this post in some way or another.  My siblings and I are facing the hard truth that our parents are aging and becoming less and less like the person they were when we were growing up.  Things seem to be changing rapidly and some days it feels like overnight.
This past weekend me, Paige, Dawn, and Amanda were faced with our mom being diagnosed with Alzheimer's.  This is not a "patient's" disease, it is a "family's" disease.  It affects the entire family and takes a toll on everyone around the patient and as children and grandchildren of the patient, it tends to feel magnified at times.  We were thrown into this disease a bit by surprise.  I say surprise, because while we knew things were changing and days weren't quite right we never thought it could get this bad so quickly.  Paige had been sharing with us things that were happening, but quite honestly if you aren't there day to day you don't see it that drastic.  Well, now Amanda and I have seen it up close and personal.
This past weekend was the annual Causby family reunion in NC.  I decided that since I had not been there since 2007, I needed to go and I'm really glad I did.  It was a pretty low turn out and as it happened, I'm kind of glad it was as many more people and things could have been far worse for mom.  She was very confused and combative at times and things spiraled a bit out of control Sunday evening leaving us to believe she may have had a stroke (which I'm still not 100% convinced she didn't).  After spending Monday in the ER and Tuesday at the doctor's office, they diagnosed her with Alzheimer's.  We were shocked (well, I was more so than the others I think as I truly didn't think she had gotten that bad).  I never dreamed things could change so quickly, but they did.  She wasn't the mother that raised us and that can be quite the shocker.
We have much to learn and understand about this terrible disease and we are all committed to learn all we can and try to do our very best to be the best caregivers we can be.  Unfortunately the day to day care will have to fall on Don, Amanda, and Paige as well as mom's sister and friends.  Dawn and I living so far away makes it so hard for us to take some of the load off them, but I'm sure we will be the ones to take the biggest part of caregiving with Stacy when it comes to our parents here.  I guess that's why the Lord ends up taking us in different directions at times.  He knows there will come a time when we need to be divided to conquer in life.  I truly believe this is what we are supposed to do with our parents.
I do pray there is a cure or better treatment for Alzheimer's soon.  It is so hard to watch a parent (or anyone for that matter) deal with this horrible disease.