In an interview with Shannon Sharpe for his Club Shay Shay podcast, former Dallas Cowboys star Michael Irvin opened up about his wife, Sandy, being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's last year.
At around the two-hour point of the interview, which can be seen in full above, Sharpe asked Irvin how it's been for him dealing with the love of his life being diagnosed with Alzheimer's when she was in her 50s. "With the support that she's given me over the years... I'm 59, and we recognized some things were going wrong with her about ten years ago," Irvin shared. "We thought it was menopause, you know, you go through it and start going to the doctor. Now, I'm coming off of burying my mother-in-law. My mom, she had Alzheimer's. My mother-in-law was living with us 'cause she had Alzheimer's, and we were taking care of her."
While it would have been early for Sandy to go through menopause when she was 49, they thought it would be best to go get some tests done.
"A year and a half of testing, we find out it was early onset," he continued. "We we have been dealing with this eight, nine years. ... It's quite hard to take care of someone 24 hours a day. I have to keep a 24-hour nurse with her all the time, and in these people now, you know, she's angry, agitated at all times. She hit you, they take that nurse out, send another nurse and they put more charges on. I mean, they running a bail up on me. But, if anybody has earned the right to be in her home? You know what I mean? And no matter what, she will be in her home. I just have to do it. nd it gets hard."
He said that having a nurse with her helps, because he can go work as a sports commentator on the weekends. "I can come back and do what I got to do again," he said. "Playing football brought me out of the ghetto, now being around the game keeps me sober and gives me that lift so I can go do deal with everything else I need to deal with."
Irvin married his wife in 1990, but they met during their time in college together. They've been married for over 35 years and together for over 40. He revealed her diagnosis last year, and said that he refused to put her in a care home.
Watch the full interview with Michael Irvin up top.