Carrie Jackson spent the better part of her twenties caring for her ailing father who was suffering from severe Alzheimer’s disease. As her father’s primary caregiver, Carrie spent years watching his health decline and managing his care.

Henry George Jackson Jr. died in 2012, after nearly three years in hospice care. Carrie currently serves in the Memory Care unit at the Mather Pavilion in Evanston, IL, and she is on the Junior Board of the Alzheimer’s Association. She contributed an essay set to be published next month in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Living with Alzheimer’s & Other Dementias.

Why did you choose to share your experiences of caring for your father?

Jackson: Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, and no one knows that. It’s also severely underfunded.

People think it’s a memory disease, but it’s so much more. It’s language, it’s perception, it’s judgement, and it ultimately shuts down the entire body. End-stage Alzheimer’s is non-verbal, requiring total care, involving hallucinations and terrors, and people not being able to move their limbs. It’s a horrible, horrible disease.

Caring for dad really changed my life. I was in my mid-twenties and my friends were dating and going on job interviews and getting married and having kids, and I would always be like ‘I have to leave early to go to the hospital.’ I was his advocate, and he really didn’t have anyone else. So, I feel that I need to share.

What is the hardest part of caring for an individual suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia?

Jackson: There becomes less and less that the person afflicted can do for themselves. Early-stage is really difficult because they argue with you and hide things. When I first started taking care of Dad, I looked at his check book and I found that he had not paid rent in three months. He was making donations to anyone who would solicit him, so donations to the Republicans, to the Democrats, and even to the Ross Perot Party.

I remember there was a big fight when I had to take his keys away after he failed his driving test for the third time. That was the only time we almost got into a physical altercation.

It was very hard telling him he could not go for walks by himself anymore, because he might not know how to get home. He also had some colorful words that he would use on a regular basis while on the streets of Evanston. He developed an irrational fear of sprinklers, so every time he saw one he would swear at it and at the person who put it there. People didn’t understand that it was the disease talking, not him.

What advice do you have for adult children caring for seriously ill parents?

Jackson: You have to find support, you have to. It sounds so cliche. It helps to relate to someone going through a similar situation. Sometimes you don’t need an answer, you just want someone who will listen to you, someone you can vent to and be like ‘this sucks.’

After witnessing your father’s decline, do you fear Alzheimer’s?

Jackson: Alzheimer’s is my biggest nightmare. I am just absolutely scared of it.

At work we try to create moments of joy for those facing it. I do Alzheimer’s training for the new volunteers, and I tell them that a beautiful thing about the disease is that the person afflicted has no recollection of the past and the future doesn’t mean anything. If you say lunch is in 20 minutes, it doesn’t mean anything. They live and are truly engaged in the moment. I try to make that moment positive; the best thing we can do is make them happy.

Read an except from her essay here