Wife Slips Into Madness As Husband Dies of Brain Tumor
Source: Good Morning America
Life seemed nearly perfect for Catherine and John Graves, who married in 2001 and lovingly merged two families that included six children.
The couple also joined forces in a masonry business in Phoenix and looked forward to a bright economic and emotional future.
But just a few years into their new marriage, John Graves showed signs of having an affair. He seemed to lose interest in his wife, squandered company money and disappeared for hours at night.
Catherine Graves, now 45, even hired a private detective. But it wasn't another woman who was the problem -- it was an aggressive and fatal brain tumor that had slowly caused personality changes and eventually killed her husband of only five years.
"I faced a harsh reality," she said. "I thought I would be spending the rest of my life with him."
Graves said the crumbling marriage and then the exhausting care-giving that followed also caused her to lose her mind, a phenomenon that is all too common when family members are left without support to care for sick and dying loved ones.
Graves chronicles her own grief and guilt as a caregiver in her memoir, "Checking Out: An In-Depth Look at Losing Your Mind."
"The mental part of it was the hardest," she told ABCNew.com. "I was so depressed, but I couldn't be depressed because it wasn't about me. I was lonely and scared and the person that I knew had vanished."
One-third of all American adults are taking care of their ill or disabled relatives and that number is expected to grow.
And an estimated 70 percent of all caregivers are women, according to Richard Nix, executive vice president of Aging Care, a website that provides resources and an online community.
"The point is caregivers are trying to hold it all together and don't have the time to go to support groups," Nix said.
