As we go into February the year seems to be flying by already. The thing is with this disease “Time” seems so distorted. Sometimes I have been told that when Elaine is in the kitchen I go in two minutes later and ask why it’s taking so long to do whatever she is doing?
I have also noticed that the days seem a lot longer and the nights even longer! Yesterday I had a really “Down Day “or I had my “Concrete overcoat on” as I always put it. I have trouble making sense of everything sometimes and it’s just so frustrating. Things are running along quite smoothly apparently, and with a family as big as mine that’s quite unusual LOL but yet I still feel so inadequate and useless sometimes that I fall into the depths of despair.
I always feel as if there is so much more to be done, (but every time I get things wrong, which is so often in a day it’s sometimes a little too much to bear,) I feel so helpless. It might only be misunderstanding what Elaine had said or getting the time and day wrong but it all mounts up and is so soul destroying. I just feel sometimes that I am only a mere shadow of the man I was. All I want to be is back the way I was, is that too much to ask?
What everyday people take for granted like using the right soap for washing with instead of shaving foam or putting the camera in the sideboard instead of the freezer is something that happens to me on a regular basis. It took us half an hour the other day to find my tracksuit bottoms, only to find them stuffed in the toilet roll holder!! Don’t ASK!!
All these things are never explained to you when you are diagnosed and it’s up to the wonderful carer`s (Caregivers) to try and second guess our next move.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not whining or complaining about my illness, I have what I have and I, or we (as Family and friends) intend to make the best of it. But I am who I am and I am only human, and I have feelings just like everyone else.
So please, anybody that reads this who has not had any experience with anybody with any type of dementia please don`t look the other way if you know me and are frightened to talk to me.
Please don’t laugh and giggle behind your hands if you see me looking confused and bewildered in the supermarket when I put the newspapers in the fruit and veg stand.
And most of all, please be patient with me if it takes me a little more time to respond when you ask me a question as it takes just that little bit longer to think of an answer these days, please remember,
I HAVE ALZHEIMERS` I`M NOT STUPID!!
I didn’t ask for this disease, I didn’t cause it by eating unhealthy or anything like that, Alzheimer’s choose me, I didn’t choose Alzheimer`s, but I tell you this,
IT PICKED ON THE WRONG GUY THIS TIME!!!!
THIS IS THE FIGHT OF MY LIFE AND ONE I INTEND TO WIN!!!
Thank you for taking the time to read this, best wishes and lots of love, Norrms, Elaine and family xxxxxxxxxxxx
