I knew what regular Alzheimer’s was much before, though.

I was four when my grandpa Landon started mixing up his days of the week and got his driver’s license taken away. Mom told me right away that grandpa had some trouble with his memory and was starting to need help at home. We lived in a small apartment, and Mom couldn’t take care of him by herself, so we had to have him placed. It was strange for him to develop it at 57, but we didn’t think too much of it.

However, when my mom came to my eighteenth birthday party with two left shoes on, I felt in my gut that grandpa Landon’s diagnosis wasn’t the end of it.

I brought her to the doctor a few days later, and sure enough, they said she had early signs of dementia. And while one person in the family developing Alzheimer’s disease before the age of sixty-five was possible, two was very unlikely. Gene panels were run, confirming it wasn’t regular Alzheimer’s my mom had, but rather a subtype of it that gets transmitted through family lines and causes an early onset of the disease. Doctors consider anything before the age of sixty-five an early diagnosis, but since my mom started deteriorating at forty-five and her younger brother, my uncle Bryan, at forty-six, I always knew it was more severe in our family.

Having everyone around you start to forget who you are is its own kind of hell. Sure, your mind is technically intact, but most of the time, you wish it wasn’t. Every day I woke up, I saw my mom lose a bit more of herself. I saw the proud lady who had raised me on her own forget to shower. I saw my wicked-smart grandfather who had taught me how to play chess forget the rules of the game. I saw my uncle cry almost every day for the last two years of his life for no particular reason, and no one could make him stop. In truth, it would’ve been better to not be myself in those moments.

So when I see Martina’s grip on her husband’s hand as he tries to speak but is unable to get the proper words out, I understand her pain. Watching someone you love struggle through a new disability is probably one of the hardest things anyone could ever go through.

Dennis’s condition is, in a way, the total opposite of my mother’s. She could speak all she wanted, but nothing she said made any sense. He has all the right thoughts, but can’t get them out. I’m not sure which one is worse.