It’s just like watching colours of a vibrant painting fade
SHE looks the same with many of the usual mannerisms, but I know her and there’s something missing from her eyes. I could be speaking about your loved one, your friend or anyone you know with some form of progressive dementia.
Yet this is reality for myself and my brother when we see our mum.
Jean is doing well. She is 75, has a twinkle in her eye most of the time and presents well for someone two andd quarter years into her post-Alzheimer’s diagnosis life.
We suspect she has been battling it for much longer than that.
The endless late night phone calls where she told me she wanted to end it all, or the long chats where she couldn’t adequately articulate her feelings were the early warning signs we could never have spotted.
Even her doctor couldn’t recognise her descent into dementia. It’s a creeper, you see. You don’t wake up one day and see your loved one suddenly morphed into a lesser soul. The devil likes to take a piece at a time.
At first it was the odd word she couldn’t put her finger on.
Then anxiety and depression set in, with her feeling life was getting out of control and worried she was going mad.d
Later came the reimagining of events as her in-built timeline started to falter.
Finally, the realisation came that even simple things like working a kettle or putting household items in their rightful place had become a puzzle with a myriad of potential solutions, none of which she was sure of.
She went from national champion saleswoman, successful hotelier and self-taught antiques expert to this frail woman who effectively became our child.
When she started cooking fruit and tea bags in the kettle, storing the cleaning products in the fridge, struggling to tell the time, handing money to shopkeepers because she couldn’t count it herself any more, or eating ready meals without cook- ing them, it was time to step in and help – and she finally accepted she needed it.
Our mum, this four foot, 10 inch pocket rocket, gradually became our dependant.
She reached the cruellest s stage – still aware enough to k know something was wrong a and that it had become an inevit itable slope, part of which was m moving into a care home.
The only saving grace is she d doesn’t dwell on her condition anyan more because of the memory loss. She simply forgets to mourn her past life.
Now life is simple. It is all about making mum as happy as possible. We can still have conversations – she’s articulate is Jean.
I can tell her a one-line joke and she will laugh. She can sing a song with me but I notice the words to even the favourites she loved are starting to escape her now.
We have round-robin conversations but that is a privilege because one day even those will stop.
Witnessing a loved one’s Alzheimer’s, dementia, memory loss is like watching the colours of a vibrant painting fade. They wash out slowly, almost unnoticed, until one day you look and see just an outline.
So you make the most of what you have – time.