When Gladine Lindly was diagnosed with dementia in 2018, she and her husband Steve Gaskell decided to manage at home. But as Lindly’s dementia progressed, Gaskell quickly realized he needed help taking care of her.
Lindly was 70 in April 2018 when she was diagnosed with a dementia-related illness. At the time, she and Gaskell lived in Ruidoso, where they had lived since about 2006 after relocating from Houston.
“I could tell in Ruidoso that she was starting to repeat the same words…She was starting to ask the same questions, say the same things. But the real turning point was when I came home one evening after work and there was smoke in the house,” Gaskell told Source NM. “I walked in and there was a pan on the stove and there was nothing in it, but the burner was on…and she had no clue.”
The couple moved to Las Cruces, where Lindly had better access to medical care. Gaskell said he asked his wife how she wanted to move forward with her diagnosis, and she said she wanted him to take care of her.
“She said, ‘I want you to be my caregiver.’ She said, ‘I don’t want to go into a home or facility,’” Glaskell recalled. “I proceeded to walk into the doors of Home Instead to apply for a job because I wanted to learn how to be a caregiver. Never done anything like that before.”
Gaskell started working with the Las Cruces healthcare service, which provides in-home care. He worked with several patients for two and a half years, until he decided he needed to be home with Lindly full-time.
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“Those were the times where she wouldn’t know who I was. She’d say that I needed to get out of the house,” he said. “You learn real early on not to take anything personally.”
Gaskell told Source that his prior work as a crisis intervention counselor, as well as his experiences with recovery and sobriety, gave him a foundation on which to build his knowledge. But he also quickly learned that he couldn’t continue to care for Lindly alone.
“One of the first things that I figured out I had to do is I had to find a support system and I had to find it quick, because all the folks I knew were in Ruidoso, I didn’t know anybody here,” Gaskell said. “The senior center was really…kind of our gateway, if you will, to building that support system.”
The couple started going to Munson Senior Center every day for lunch and events like dances, which the center hosts. They met people and connected with the staff, which Gaskell said benefited both him and Lindly. They were assigned a case manager through the senior center, who helped coordinate assistance for them.
Assistance started with respite care, he said. A caregiver working with an agency the senior center contracts with would spend a couple of hours each week with Lindly so Gaskell could take care of his own medical appointments, go shopping, walk the dogs or just take a much needed nap. The caregivers would not only keep Lindly company and ensure her safety, but “went above and beyond” by doing light housework too.
When Lindly reached the point at which she couldn’t be left alone at all, Gaskell said he paid out-of-pocket for more in-home caregivers to assist each day.
“What I found through the process was that as you go through it, you need more and more time away to rejuvenate,” he said. “Just the amount of support of people coming in that were just willing to sit with Galdine, willing to be there with her, wanting to be there with her. So I was very, very blessed.”
Lindly’s dementia continued to progress and Gaskell explained that she went through periods of time when she didn’t know who he was, to knowing him again. When Lindly couldn’t remember who he was and threatened to call the police on the “stranger” in her home, Gaskell realized it would be proactive to alert the local police about their situation.
Gaskell learned just how strong his support system was last May when he suffered a heart attack and had to stay in the hospital. Respite care for Lindly for several hours a week became 24/7 care while he recovered from an operation and continued when he returned home.
“As far as having your heart ripped out [while caregiving], it made sense that’s the organ that failed,” he said.
According to a report published by the National Institutes of Health, over 6 million people live with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia in the U.S. and experts project the number to grow exponentially in the next 20 years. The New Mexico Caregivers Coalition reports that about 419,000 family caregivers in New Mexico provide unpaid care annually, an economic value estimated to be about $3.1 billion.
By September 2024, Lindly started eating less and less, until she completely stopped eating and was placed on hospice care. By December, the hospice nurse told Gaskell it was time for family and friends to start saying their goodbyes.
“I remained with her in the bed the entire time, as did the pups,” he said. “And then her breathing slowed and she took a deep breath, and then there was a pause, and then she would exhale. And she did that three times and then that was it. And it was as peaceful as you can imagine. And that was…this sounds crazy to say, but that was probably the easiest part of the whole process.”
Lindly passed on Jan. 7, 2025 at the age of 77.
Since then, Gaskell has turned his efforts to helping others in situations similar to what he experienced. He told Source that the caregiver support groups he was initially directed to were largely attended by women and, while he gleaned information from the sessions, he said he felt there should be a similar space for men to share their experiences.
He started working with the Alzheimer’s Association’s New Mexico chapter a couple of years ago and now facilitates a men’s caregiver group at Munson Senior Center once a month.
“One of the first things that I always try to do at the person’s first meeting is I always try to get him hooked up with as many different services as I can,” he said. “Going through the experience of seeing the person that you love most in the world just deteriorate in front of your eyes every single day, it’s painful. And so you have to have some sort of outlet.”
Gaskell said he continues to visit the Munson Center, tries to help other caregivers as much as he can and spreads the word about services available to people in his community.
“I can’t see doing anything else because so many people have helped me. So many people have helped me along during the journey that now it’s just a matter of giving back to others,” Gaskell said.
This article was written with the support of a journalism fellowship from The Gerontological Society of America, The Journalists Network on Generations and The NIHCM Foundation.
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