This is what I wrote as my day progressed:I am full of panic and apprehension this morning as I can’t remember what I should do or say to people when they visit us today and now my mind is lost in an ocean of bewilderment, I don’t know what way to turn or how to avert my fears of the day ahead, all I want to do is to run away or shut myself away from all the imminent visitors as I know that hands of greeting will keep being thrust out in front of me “But” what must I do in reply.
Sumi gave me a calming pill but I don’t feel calm, I’m tense and I keep trembling and looking over my shoulder but there’s nothing there so why do I feel so scared!
People have started to pour into the house like a torrential stream and I keep stammering my greetings with my mind going in circles. I said to Sumi I can’t understand why some of the visitors seem to be sacred of me as they are people that I have known since their own childhood but know they don’t want to even try talking to me what are they scared of! Why are they so sceptical has my condition deteriorated that much! I know I don’t remember any of their names and their faces are just faces so everybody seems like strangers to me including some members of my Indonesian family!
I’m shacking, shacking so much that I can’t control it so I went into our bedroom to get away from all the sudden hustle and noise, I sat in my armchair with my head clenched in my hands and then just burst into floods of tears I guess out of utter frustration with my condition (I am as a ghost lost in the shadowland of Alzheimer’s Dementia)
At midmorning Sumi and I went to visit some of our neighbours and wish them a ‘Happy Eid’ and to say this was extremely difficult for me to walk to their houses would be a gross understatement but I stumbled along the roadway going from house to house as I weighed heavily on my walking stick and Sumi’s arm and not really knowing where we were going, again I was confusion bound as I could not remember people’s names ‘Yet’ there faces seemed vaguely familiar!
By mid-afternoon I was utterly shattered and my left leg was badly swollen as was my prostrate and the personal area of my male anatomy which is still giving much cause for concern!
It was a very difficult day and I can honestly say that I don’t recall and ‘Eid’ being so difficult for me ‘but’ that’s the way of life when living with Alzheimer’s and Dementia…
Barry ©