Interesting that you knew this person as well cofinley...so its not a gradual deterioration over time, it seems to "come and go". I guess gradual deteriorations start to come and go more frequently than they did earlier perhaps..but I know that when you said that this was the person you met then I know that bruce's family would've said the same thing, and I had already been shipped out to my mother-in-laws unable to walk or see very well by that time. That makes me really stop and think.
Mom2six, you are right about the time bomb thing. In my family there seems to be such a denial system in place that the person, and the family refuse to admit that any bomb went off at all. My biggest fear is that if a bomb went off in me already, and genetically I have some predisposition to not recognize it and think I am right all the time! If I have family members telling me that a "bomb went off" with me basically, and I am not believing them, then it is so hard for me to not think that I have indeed succumbed to the family "bomb" and am walking around crazy, and unknowingly crazy at that, and not admitting it! If the bomb hit me, then I have searched every angle to the point of harm to myself, and I just can't see it!!! It is a dizzying horrible thing watching for that bomb.