Memory loss a headache

She had just hung the washing on the line, and quickly came inside to ask for a couple of coconuts.

Sue Thomson’s children looked at her with bewilderment, they could not make the connection between laundry and the island fruit.

‘‘In my head I asked for two coathangers, but what came out of my mouth was ‘give me two coconuts’,’’ the former Auckland nurse recalls.

At the time, Thomson was suffering from temporary dementia and her strange question was a symptom of her condition.. In 2014, the Titirangi resident was at a friend’s place when she had a nasty fall that knocked her unconscious. When she woke up everything seemed confusing.

‘‘It was a traumatic brain injury. When I woke up I could not remember anything. I could not understand what was going on. It took a lot of therapy to get going again.’’

Thomson’s background as a mental health nurse helped her understand what had happened physiologically, but nothing could have prepared the then 52-year-old for the challenges ahead.

‘‘After my injury, I had forgotten how to read, I could not watch television because the images just confused me. I had nothing to do.

The only thing that kept me going were the long walks I would go for in Titirangi. They were great, they kept me going.’’

Her short-lived brush with the degenerative illness got Thomson thinking about how difficult it must be for permanent sufferers.

Thomson has become an advocate for spreading awareness about the disease. She is speaking at the fourth annual Alzheimers Auckland Symposium on August 28.