Alzheimer's disease is a degenerative brain disease which has major social consequences for the individual who has the disease as well as for those people who are emotionally and/or physically close to this individual. The role which language plays in this relationship stands at the center of the present study. As a complement to traditional analyses of language and Alzheimer's disease based on speech samples elicited in clinical settings, we will examine language in the life of one elderly female Alzheimer's patient, Elsie, from an interactional sociolinguistic perspective. Here the language of our conversations over four-and-one-half years will be investigated both as a changing symptom of the progression of her disease and in my reactions to Elsie's communicative breakdowns and successes. I will attempt to paint a picture of Elsie which goes beyond a mere producer and recipient of the utterances which are the source of the frameworks and findings discussed in this study. I hope the reader will come to know a person with wishes, needs, and intentions, who laughs, gets embarrassed, expresses happiness, confidence, and confusion, and shows love and concern for others - an individual who is both hindered and helped by her conversational partner to succeed in interaction. Elsie's language reflects the mental disability of Alzheimer's disease and holds in it countless secrets regarding her abilities and disabilities. The upcoming analyses and interpretations of Elsie's language use are meant to help us get closer to an understanding of how these abilities and disabilities are related to each other and how they change over time.