Hi.. my husband is 50. He'll be 51 in December. A few years ago the kids and I started noticing DH was forgetting things. Small things like forgetting he told a kid he'd fix a bike, or forgetting to stop at the store on his way home, forgetting my favorite color, random things like that. It's ongoing. A year ago he started having trouble at work. He's a database programmer and he told me that he's completely unable to remember a specific chunk of code-- something he's used every day for the last 15 years. A couple months ago, he was completely convinced that our typica Thursday was something utterly different than it is.. he spent 25 minutes trying to convince my son, my daughter and me that we were wrong. The next morning he insisted that I had grouched about him for not cleaning up a plant the cat had knocked over.. the problem was that I didn't. When he came in from letting chickens out, I asked him if he had seen the huge mess that cat made digging up my seedlings. DH said he had not seen it, and then 5 minutes later was moody and upset with me because he claimed I was getting on him about not cleaning it up. It took me and two kids to convince him that he was misremembering.  There have been big memory incidents before this one, where he has had no memory of something happening, or somebody doing something.  I've noticed it, our kids have noticed, and I think people he works with have noticed as well. 

Occasionally he gets completely confused. About two months ago, he was making omlets for him and me, and forgot how to make the omlets. I've noticed that he's more easily frustrated than he was say.. 5 years ago. He no longer can handle any amount of stress, he can't organize, or prioritze his daily or weekly tasks at home or at work anymore. I write him a daily list, and sometimes have to tell him what order to complete things in. He also cusses more than he used to.

I can't get my husband to see a doctor. Or.. rather, he went to see a doctor, but when the doctor recommened an MRI, DH refused, saying that his memory problems aren't really that big of a deal. He wavers between telling me that memory problems are seriously effecting him at work and at home to saying that it's no big deal. I've been trying to get him to follow through on the MRI for 6 months now. Before that it took me a full 15 months, and threats to leave just to get him to see the doctor. 7 years ago, he had an MRI for an unrelated issue and there was an abnormal bright spot on the MRI. DH was supposed to follow up, but never did. 

I'm worried about him. I get that he's probalby scared to find out what's going on, but he needs a diagnosis so we know what we're dealing with. 

At this point, his memory problems effect every area of our life, but he rarely sees it , and admits it even less often. He seems to forget little things daily. He manages at work by doing one thing at a time, leaving himself notes and emailing me when he gets confused. 

To me, all this sounds like Alzheimer's, but I'm not sure.. and like I said getting to see a doctor is tough.. I did get him to go to the emergency room with me in the middle of his last major memory lapse.. but the ER doc wouldn't do anything. I was hoping they would give him an MRI, but no such luck.. the ER doc told me it was not an emergency, and handed me a stack of information about Dementia, but there was no exam done.