Columnist Saralee Perel shared stories from her “wacky and wistful” life with her husband with FTD in a recent article published in the Cape Cod Times.

Perel opens the column with a story of being woken up by her husband Bob Daley repeatedly checking to see how she was sleeping. She admits to getting irritated with the repeated interruptions, and tried to remind him that he already asked the question multiple times.

“I’ll tell you; I hate myself when I act irritated,” Perel writes. “I’m trying, though unsuccessfully so far, to learn that caregivers are only human and that I’m not alone in reacting like a crab at times.”

Perel shares how devastating an FTD diagnosis can be, and how it upends the lives of a diagnosed person and their loved ones. To illustrate how much FTD can impact people’s lives, Perel shares how Daley’s diagnosis has made many of his hobbies and interests difficult or impossible.

Prior to the onset of FTD, Daley was a prolific baker, winning 24 ribbons at the Barnstable County Fair one year for his cookies, breads, and muffins. However, when recently trying to make a recipe of Daley’s alongside him, Perel found that her husband couldn’t remember what to do with the ingredients or baking tools.

Perel also shares how Daley built Cape Cod’s first community TV studio by hand, trained aspiring showrunners how to put their community programming together, and was the director of a local TV channel for over two decades. Daley was even a contestant on the popular game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Today, though, Perel says that Daley struggles to remember these impressive accomplishments.

Perel writes about the grief that she feels when she remembers the fun times that she and Daley used to share, like late night brownie parties or hot fudge sundaes at a local restaurant. However, Perel ends on a heartfelt note, sharing how watching Daley enjoy simple things like a delicious pastry can be a breathtaking, fulfilling moment in time.

Interested in reading other firsthand FTD stories? Click here to read about a writer who shared her experiences of having two sisters, each with a different type of dementia, or click here to read about a podcast episode where AFTD Ambassador Deb Scharper shares her own FTD journey.